The mysterious pyramids of Tenerife island
85Pyramids of Güímar
Thor Heyerdahl
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The mysterious pyramids of Tenerife island
If I give you the word "pyramid" most people will think of Egypt or Mexico perhaps, but these ancient and mysterious buildings are found all over the world in many different countries and locations including Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
The main pyramids of Tenerife are in a town on the east coast called Güímar in the south of the island, where they had been more or less forgotten about until world famous explorer and archaeologist, the late Thor Heyerdahl, heard about them from a newspaper and decided they were authentic step-pyramids like he had seen on his travels in Peru, Mexico and elsewhere. He enlisted the support of Norwegian shipping magnate Fred Olsen, who lives on Tenerife, and the Ethnographic Park and centre was set up and opened in 1998 where the six pyramids stand in Güímar.
Thor Heyerdahl believed that at one time the pyramid-building peoples of the world travelled the seas on rafts and he himself sailed from Morocco to Barbados on a papyrus raft known as Ra II to show this sort of thing could be done. It is also possible that the pyramids had been made by the mysterious Guanches, who once lived on the Canary Islands, although the academics have portrayed these people as living in primitive Stone Age ways.
The Guanches, who were invaded and conquered by the Spanish, are believed by many to be descendants of the Berbers from North Africa because they were known to be white-skinned, often with blonde hair and blue eyes. How they arrived on the islands is another mystery because they did not use boats.
Other people who believe in Atlantis have put forward the idea that the Guanches were Atlantean descendants or even actual survivors. James Churchward who had a series of controversial books published in the early 1930s starting with The Lost Continent of Mu produced a map showing clearly that where the Canary Islands are today Atlantis once was.
That the Guanches were familiar with the pyramid shape is shown by designs on artistic seals known as pintaderas that have been found, and are thought to have been used for body painting. The Guanches also used to practice mummification of their dead, which, of course, is a practice the Egyptians also used.
Thor Heyerdahl speculated that the pyramids were astronomically aligned and showed evidence for his theory that the pyramids were used for ceremonies at times of the year such as the summer solstice. It is accepted by archaeologists that the Guanches lived in and used the area of Güímar and proof of this has been found in caves, however, academics still insist that the pyramids were not made by the Guanches and have put forward the idea they were constructed by landowners and farmers as a means of getting rid of the volcanic rocks.
So the debate continues over who made the Pyramids of Güimar, or the Chacona Pyramids, as they are also known. Thor Heyerdahl wanted visitors to make up their own minds and so the symbol used at the exhibition of displayed material at the Ethnographic Park of Güímar is the question mark.
Another unexplained mystery lies on the west side in the north of Tenerife, where similar and nonetheless impressive pyramids are to be found on farmland in La Suerte in the village of San Marcos, in Santa Bárbara, in La Mancha and at Santo Domingo, all of which villages are close to Icod de los VInos. Like Güímar, this area is known to have been a part of the island where the Guanches once lived and Icod de los Vinos is famous for its mighty Drago Milenario, a Dragon Tree (Dracaena draco) said to be between 1,000 and 3,000 years old and a place where the Guanches once assembled.
In Santa Bárbara there are several pyramids and even a house built next to one. But these pyramids appear to be forgotten and ignored - you will not find any mention of them in guidebooks or anywhere else for that matter. It is said that the Pyramids of Güímar were once fated for destruction to make way for local development in the area, and it appears that pyramids on the other side of the island may have already gone. Those still standing are what is left of a time when they were being built, but the question is - who by?
For more info on the Pyramids of Güímar please see: http://www.ferco.org/ferco_pyramids.html
and also for a Tenerife pyramid at http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2442.html?theme=light
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Comments
Hello again, Patty! :) Thank you for posting and I am really glad this info was of interest to you. I would have liked to have met Thor Heyerdahl but sadly he died before I was living here.
Ive went to Tenerife when I was 4 - but I don't recall the pyramids! I don't remember much so maybe its time for a revisit - interesting hub!
Well all the pyramids here including the ones that now get publicised due to Thor Heyerdahl's name and Fred Olsen's money would have been forgotten about when you were here. Even now most of them are hardly known about. It's a weird situation. People pay 9€ to go in the Ethnographic Park in Güíimar but the ones in Santa Barbara you can see for free no one bothers with and many people don't even know they exist. People in the resorts down south don't even know a village called Santa Bárbara exists, let alone knowing of any pyramids there!
Indeed it is!
Wow! I did not know that there were pyramids in tenerfie! But it makes sense, as there are various sites in europe which qualify in status as pyramids, including our very own Silbury Hill in the UK. I would very much like to see the pyramids of Tenerife one day. btw, have you heard of the work that Andrew Collins is doing lately? <a href="http://andrewcollins.com/">Official Andrew Collins Website</a>
Hi Lou! :) I know, Andrew, and was in correspondence with him earlier this year and he knows all about the pyramids here. In fact he told me that the late Thor Heyerdahl had invited him over before he died and unfortunately he hadn't taken him up on his offer and then it was too late. Andrew thinks there may be underwater stuff here too.
I have heard that too. I spoke to him at he Cygnus Day in Glastonbury a couple of years ago and we discussed the likelyhoof of stuff underwater. I have been a huge fan of his since he wrote The Black Alchemist in the '80's. I have a copy of the Cygnus Mystery and there are some interesting theories in that book.
I had the Black Alchemist before I moved here! That's great you know Andrew too!
Hi Bard, I thought I'd pop in and add my tuppennyworth.
The Canary Islands are volcanic in origin and first broke the surface of the sea about eleven million years ago. In geological terms, they are young, but of course they are much older than mankind. Their creation has almost come to a close: the last massive eruption occurred two hundred years ago in the centre of Lanzarote, destroying fifteen villages but so slowly as to cause no loss of life.
They were formed by a magmatic "hotspot" which was slowly travelling westward beneath the Atlantic sea bed, heaving it upward and tearing cracks as it travelled.
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura were "tears" aligned roughly north-south, Gran Canaria appears to be a expanded "pinhole" with even radial cracks, and Tenerife was originally a "Y"-shaped crack through which 84 volcanic events took place.
The Atlantic sea bed is two miles down, and underwater volcanic slopes approach the vertical, so that within a mile of the shoreline you reach the bottom of the ocean.
My point is that the geological evidence does not point to this area as the origin of the demise of Atlantis - it wouldn't have been subsumed under the volcanic creation events in the island chain.
Eruptions in the past fifty thousand (homo sapiens era) years have been sluggish in character, and couldn't have obliterated a civilisation: it could simply have walked away to another part of any of the islands.
And to the "experts'" view that the stones were piled to clear the fields: I don't agree with that. Wherever you look in these islands, you'll see terraces: the steep volcanic slopes have been levelled wherever possible, and to level them you need to move the stones and build them into walls. To do this you will always need ALL the stones, ergo, if they were piled into flat plinths, there must have been a more pressing reason for doing so. This could only have been either ritualistic or practical: these "pyramids" were the "churches" or the "markets" of that era.
Without a doubt, these plinths indicate some, but not all, areas on the island where the original ancient settlements existed: and just as in Britain churches are central within villages, these "pyramids" would have been central within settlements. Unfortunately some pyramids have undoubtedly disappeared in the transitions between successive communities, and would almost certainly have been re-used as walls if nearby Catholic communities began constructing churches.
If you inspect carefully the soil of the pyramids of Guimar hoping to find ANY artefacts of previous civilisation, you'll be disappointed: there are no traces to be found. There are only rough rubble-like stones, but the top surfaces are adequately flat for standing on. And that's nearly all that is there - except for a WONDERFUL garden of native plants which would justify a visit by itself, a small museum demonstrating Heyerdahl's research, and a cool, elegant, shaded and civilized cafeteria and bookshop.
Thank you for your detailed contribution, JazzRoc!
"Without a doubt, these plinths indicate some, but not all, areas on the island where the original ancient settlements existed: and just as in Britain churches are central within villages, these "pyramids" would have been central within settlements."
I would think that Santa Bárbara was one such settlement as was Güímar.
working
Patty Inglish, MS says:
4 months ago
Excellent information. I read Thor Heyerdahl long ago and will look at a fresh bibliography to see what I've missed. Thanks very much for the information and pictures! I make a study of human migrations and this Hub helps. Thanks Up!