The Acámbaro FIGURES of Mexico

By Fchavez2000 - Own work, GFDL, wikimedia

In 1944, German entrepreneur Waldemar Julsrud found a clay figure near the banks of Cerro del Toro in Acámbaro, Guanjato, Mexico. No stranger to the area, Julsrud had contributed to the discovery of Chupicuaro culture in 1923. Yet as he continued to find similar figures, Julsrud began to wonder whether they corresponded to the same ancient people he helped discover more than 20 years before.

According to Julsrud, a more in-depth search revealed that similar figures were quite plentiful so he employed assistants (mostly local farmers) to help him collect the artifacts. Julsrud told him he would pay 1 peso (12 cents) for every piece found and soon gathered an impressive collection. In a short time, the entrepreneur’s rare assortment grew to an envious size—about 32-37,000 figures.

While the figures appeared to be of ancient origin, their depictions were quite controversial and began to attract attention among skeptics in the scientific community. The Acámbaro figures portrayed not only dinosaurs but also unknown animals as well as those that had long been extinct. The figures also included camels and other animals not known to the area, as well as depictions of faraway cultures.

Because it directly challenged the contemporary scientific understanding of man’s evolutionary development, many researchers began to take a closer look at Julsrud’s clay figures. Archeologist Dr. Charles Di Peso is perhaps the most well-known skeptic of the Acámbaro finds. He notes that the pieces look too well preserved to have been buried in the ground for as long as Julsrud and others claim. He published a detailed criticism of the artifacts in the journal American Antiquity.

In 1972, carbon-14 analysis was made of various figures kept at the Museum of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. Laboratory tests showed that the objects were 5,000 years old. Four years beforehand at Isotopes Inc. in New Jersey, thermo-luminosity tests revealed that the approximate age was around 6,000 to 1,500 years old.
The archeologist and the regional director of the Acámbaro National Museum of Archeology enlisted various authorities to testify to the authenticity of the figures, including the paleontologist at the EUA Natural History Museum, naturalist Dr. Gaylord Simpson; Ivan T. Sanderson; and attorney/criminologist Erle Gardner.

As the popularity of the collection grew, so did the number of people who questioned the authenticity of the pieces. It was proposed that Julsrud was scammed by his assistants, who crafted the figures just to make money. While those who believe in Julsrud’s claim insist that making thousands of figures with such miniscule detail in such a short amount of time wouldn’t have been possible, critics counter that poor villagers were recruited to create exactly the kind of sculpture that Julsrud was looking for.
Critics also note that the figures are found in only one archeological site. However, those supporting the validity of the clay statues surmise that they may have been strategically buried by their creators, in a place considered religious or sacred.

While some argue that much more recent aboriginals could have crafted the pieces based on prehistoric animal bones found in the area, other researchers suggest that a civilization with an advanced culture sculpted the figures based on recorded history from an epoch when their ancestors coexisted with enormous reptiles.

Among the strange contents of the Acámbaro collection, there is a depiction of an extinct species of rhinoceros, a horse not seen since the Ice Age, extinct South American monkeys, plesiosaurus, and brachiosaurus. Unidentified species include some that are part bird and part reptile, combinations of reptiles and marsupials, reptiles with spoon-shaped beaks, and reptiles with horns. Among the human figures, a culture dedicated to hunting, without knowledge of agriculture, can clearly be seen. There are also some that show domestication of reptiles as well as other depictions.

The case of the Acámbaro figures shares striking similarities with stones found in Ica, Peru. Both supposed relics show scenes of dinosaurs alongside humans (among other rarities) and both have been labeled hoaxes by many in the scientific community.

Whether these figures are the product of fraud or a genuine testimony of prehistoric civilizations, the Acámbaro figures continue to intrigue a number of researchers who are searching for the true origin and development of man.

In our humble opinion these figurines are the real deal and we leave it up to the reader to make his or her own opinion on this subject after reading the following facts.

During excavations among the figurines there were found some teeth. These teeth were taken to Dr. George Gaylord Simpson in 1955, at that time America's leading paleontologist who worked at the American Museum of Natural History. He identified them as the teeth of Equus Conversidans Owen, an extinct horse of the Ice Age. In the Julsrud collection are two figurines of Equus Conversidans Owen.

The image of the Ice Age horse is also engraved on ceramic pots in the collection.
William W. Russell, a Los Angeles newspaperman was soon on the scene. Russell himself photographed the excavations. Freshly dug pits produced objects, with roots entwining them. The objects must have been in the ground for many years for tree roots to grow around them at a depth of five or six feet beneath the earth. Russell reported that he judged from the evidence the objects to be
very old.

Francisco Aguitar Sanchaz, Superintendent of the National Irrigation Plant of Solis said, "That on the basis of four years intimate knowledge of the inhabitants of the entire area and of archaeological activity there, he could positively deny that there was any such ceramic production in the vicinity." The Municipal President of Acambaro, Juan Terrazaz Carranza, issued on July 23,1952, an official statement No. 1109 refuting Dipeso's allegation.

"This Presidency under my direction ordered that an investigation be carried out in this matter, and has arrived at the conclusion that in this municipal area there does not exist any persons who makes these kinds of objects."

There are many other problems associated with Dipeso's spurious allegations. He fails to mention that the ceramic artifacts of varying clay composition and styles had been individually and not mold-made. There were not only ceramic pieces but also stone pieces.

The ceramic collection has unsurpassed variety and beauty that has won the admiration of professional artists. No peasant family could possibly make thousands and thousands of non-duplicated sculptures with such skill and artistic finesse.The famous Earle Stanley Gardner, whose detective mysteries became the basis for the famous Perry Mason television programs, was a forensic pathologist and attorney who served as District Attorney for the city of Los Angeles for over 20 years. Mr. Gardner examined the collection and voiced the expert opinion of an experienced prosecuting attorney when he said that if a group of fakers had made all the pieces, their style would be recognizable on the whole collection."Every criminal, every criminal gang has its own method of operations. Police can often identify a criminal or gang from the method of a crime. It is obvious that no one individual or group could have made the pieces."

Charles Dipeso said that further investigation revealed that a family living in the Acambaro, area made the figurines during "the winter months while their fields lie idle." Dipeso believed his family of hoaxers got their ideas from the local cinema, comic books, newspapers or books from the local library.

The collection is not only skillfully made but contains dinosaur species that only a highly educated person who had burrowed deep into the recesses of paleontological literature could have known of the rare life forms. Odilon Tinajero had neither the artistic competence or educational background to
perpetuate such a hoax. Tinajero left school in the fourth grade and could barely read or write.

Acambaro is a dry, arid, and relatively treeless area, yet all the ceramic objects had been baked in open fires. This would require many truckloads of firewood which is very expensive in Acambaro. It would have been consumed consistently. The smoke rising from the fire could not have possibly gone undetected by the entire community.In 1954, the storm of controversy surrounding the Julsrud collection reached such a crescendo of interest that official archaeologists of the Mexican Government decided to investigate. Dr. Eduardo Noquera, director of Pre-Hispanic Monuments of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologiae Historia, was the lead investigator. Dr. Noquera was accompanied by Rafael Orellana, Ponciano Salazar, and Antonio Pompa y Pompa of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologiciae Historia, upon arrival they inspected the collection and proceeded to El Toro Hill to select undisturbed sites for excavation.

Dr. Noguera supervised the dig at a site that he and the other prominent Mexican archaeologists selected. After several hours of digging many figures were discovered. The archeologists declared that the pieces gave every sign of antiquity and of having been buried a long time ago. The figurines were dug up in the presence of a number of witnesses which included people from the local schools and members of the Chamber of Commerce. Immediately the archeologists congratulated Julsrud on his remarkable discoveries. Two of the archeologists promised to write about the discovery in a scientific journal.

Noquera realized that the dinosaur figurines posed a problem that could ruin his professional career. The archeologists simply faced a dilemma to either tell the truth, that regardless of what anybody may think they had chosen a site and dug up dinosaur figures or to hide the truth in some alternative explanation.

Eventually, an eminent scholar arrived on the scene in Acambaro who would expose the contentions of Julsrud's opponents with a series of arguments and facts that would prove to be indisputable.
In the summer of 1955 Charles Hapgood, the Professor of History and Anthropology at Keene State College of the University of New Hampshire, spent several months in Acambaro and conducted a
very detailed investigation of the collection. Charles Hapgood had already distinguished himself as the author of a number of books including "Earth's Shifting Crust" (1958), "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" (1966), and "The Path of the Pole" (1970).

Hapgood excavated a number of sites that were on previously undisturbed ground and found many pieces of ceramic figurines of the "Julsrud" type. To eliminate any possibility of fraud that Tinajero or anyone else had manufactured the ceramics, Hapgood decided to excavate beneath a house that had been built in 1930, long before any artifacts were found on El Toro Hill. They found a house directly over the site owned by the chief of police, asked permission to dig beneath the floor of his house. Permission was granted, and they dug a six-foot deep pit beneath the hard concrete floor of the living room, unearthing dozens of the controversial objects. Since the house had been built twenty five years before Julsrud arrived in Mexico, it exonerated Julsrud, eliminated the hoax theory and negated Dipeso's as well as Noquera's reports at all the important points.

The Japanese company, Nissi, sponsored a television crew to go to Acambaro and produce a program for Japanese TV regarding the Acambaro figurines. The program entitled "Did the Ancients See Dinosaurs" was aired on February 2, 1997 in Japan. There is a stunning moment in the program as the Japanese narrator is looking over an animal figurine, and he holds it up next to his Japanese book on dinosaur species. Dr. Herrejon said that even most of the Brontosaurs looking dinosaurs did not look like a"typical" saurian dinosaur. We pressed him as to what he meant by "typical?" He replied, "they had spines all down their backs, little spines." We drew dinosaurs with conical dermal spines and Antonio pointed vigorously stating in Spanish, "That's it, That's it".

Dr. Herrejon unwittingly had helped to verify the authenticity of the Julsrud dinosaur figurines. No one knew in the 1940s, 50's, that some species of Saurian dinosaurs had dermal spines. They were perceived as represented on the Sinclair gasoline filling station signs. It was the work of Stephen Czerkas in a 1992 article that brought to light this aspect of dinosaur anatomy .

So I leave you now with one more picture of a temple wall in Cambodia depicting a Stegosaurus, and an Ica stone they are a collection of andesite stones alleged to contain ancient depictions of dinosaurs and advanced technology. They were discovered in a cave near Ica, Peru.

I'm sure the "experts " will be able to explain this "hoax" also.

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Resource(s):   theepochtimes | wikipedia