During the period 2002-2003, Marko Pogačnik, UNESCO Artist for Peace, oversaw the installation of eleven small monoliths and one bronze plaque in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The monuments run along a NE-SW axis through the center of the city. Each stone or plaque is emblazoned with a cosmogram, or symbolic design representing the Earth’s energy at that geographic point. According to the artist, the stones and plaque penetrate the earth like acupuncture needles, stimulating terrestrial energy in what Pogačnik calls the practice of geopuncture. But why did Pogačnik select these twelve specific sites in Quito?

Following an Ancient Grid

According to Diego F. Velasco, long-time scholar of ancient Ecuadorian cultures and co-founder of the group, Kitu Milenario: Cosmovimiento Andino (Millenary Kitu: Andean Cosmomovement) , the Slovenian artist’s project is an expression of a more ancient knowledge that can be traced to the Kitu-Kara cultures of ancient Ecuador and beyond. Pogačnik’s architectonic line is part of an ancient, earth-energy grid known to the indigenous peoples of South America. This ancient grid was composed of intersecting lines known as ceques in Kichwa. This grid was marked by prominent monuments and sacred sites throughout South America.

According to Juan de Velasco, author of History of the Kingdom of Quito ( Historia del Reino de Quito ), the Kitu culture established their center in Quito around 2000 BC. Their culture then blended with coastal newcomers, the Kara, creating what is now known as the Kitu-Kara culture. Quito, or Kitu, remained an important ceremonial city for all indigenous cultures up through the time of the Incas, who built their second capital on the site of long-ancient Quito.

Quito following Spanish colonization. ( Public Domain )

Two large hills envelop the ancient site of Quito, Itchimbía and El Panecillo. Itchimbía lies near the NE axis of Quito, and Panecillo marks the gateway to the south. Both of these hills surround the grid that imbues ceremonial Quito with its energetic power, and Pogačnik crowned each of them with a monolith. However, the energetic line extends beyond ancient Quito’s boundaries. To the north, the ancient pre-Inca site of Cochasquí, with its monumental earthen pyramids and burial mounds (or tolas), falls along the same line. Further north, it passes through the Mojanda Lakes region and crosses Mount Imbabura, one of the most important apus, or ancestral sites, in Ecuador. According to Xiomara Navas, another long-time scholar involved in the Kitu Milenario project, the same ceque extends to the south to Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, in the far Pacific.

The Golden Sun

According to Diego Velasco, the ceques form an energetic matrix that transmits life to and from the Earth. This grid is recorded in various indigenous works of art, one of the most famous being El Sol de Oro La Tolita (The Tolita Golden Sun). This emblematic piece was unearthed in Chunucari, Azuay Province in the 1930s but, based on chemical analysis, can be definitively attributed to the Tolita culture of northern Ecuador.

This large piece, 60 x 40 cm ( inches), depicts a human-feline face surrounded by 44 rays ending in serpent heads. The feline and serpent represent two of the three members of the Andean cosmological triad: the condor (sky), jaguar or puma (earth), and serpent (underworld). But why is this cosmology arranged in the form of a sun?

El Sol de Oro La Tolita. (Cuyabeno Lodge )

Velasco offered two reasons. First, the sun represents the solar plexis, the center of the body from which radiates our strength and desire to live. This power is represented by the cosmological jaguar. Correspondingly, Quito is known as La Mitad del Mundo , or Center of the World, for obvious reasons. Quito lies at 0° latitude, the widest part of the Earth. Quito is, essentially, the radiant solar plexis of the planet in the Andean geocosmos. Quito was recognized as an ancient cultural center and important site of human activity for over 3,000 years.

Second, the Sol de Oro is a physical map of the energy grid radiating out of Quito. One can overlay this cosmographic map onto a plan of Quito’s historic center—where Spanish monuments are built directly over important sites of the ancient Kitu-Kara culture—with remarkable correspondence. The face represents the site of ancient ceremonies, and the serpent rays represent the matrix of ceques, or transmission lines, radiating out from the ceremonial grid. The most important ceque runs through the middle of the face along the cheekbones.

El Sol de Oro overlayed on a map of Quito’s historic center. (Credit: Diego Velasco) The long meridian that transverses the face is Calle Venezuela; it traces the important ceque that runs in a NE-SW direction through the center of Quito

But is there any truth, or physical analogue, to the idea that the Earth’s energy flows along specific gridlines that can be mapped? Maps of ley line systems and vile vortices available on the Internet show no correspondence with the line that both Pogačnik and the indigenous Kitu-Karas identified and celebrated. These ley systems appear to lack physical evidence.

Comparing the Gridlines to The GCM

However, there is a real geophysical phenomena, the Guayaquil-Caracas Megashear (GCM), that very closely corresponds to the Quito ceque. The GCM is the separation boundary between the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate, and the Caribbean Plate in the planetary tectonic plate system. Roughly one kilometer ( miles) wide and ten kilometers ( miles) deep, it is the source of many minor and severe regional earthquakes.

The GCM runs along a NE-SW direction, almost exactly parallel to the Quito ceque—given that geological phenomena rarely conform to straight geometric lines. Still active today, the GCM is the site of powerful electrical and plasma activity. For example, during the 2016 earthquake along Ecuador’s coast, witnesses at Canoa Beach in Manabí Province saw ball lightning shooting out of the fissures created by the grinding tectonic plates.

An example of ball lightning. (Joe Thomissen/ CC BY SA 3.0 )

Clearly, there is some reason to believe that the Kitu-Kara culture was aware of this geophysical phenomenon, and that perhaps they even exploited its energy for personal or cultural purposes. Did the Kitu-Kara identify this energetic line merely by observing earthquake activity, or did they comprehend the energetic power of this fault line through other means?

The Saga Continues

The saga of the Quito ceque continues to evolve. Sometime in November 2017 the bronze plaque designed by Marko Pogačnik and installed in Plaza Grande in the heart of Quito’s historic center was stolen by unknown parties.

Soledad Burbano and other associates of Pogačnik contacted him, requesting a replacement. The Slovenian artist willingly obliged but substituted a new design for the old one. He indicated that the new plaque needed to reflect evolving energetic conditions, both in Quito and globally.

The bronze plaque that was stolen. ( Kitu Underground )

Visitors to Quito are invited to walk along the “route of the monoliths” from Lower Batán Park to Chillogallo Park and admire the views and historic sites of this ancient city.

Top Image: View of Pogačnik’s monolith in Itchimbia Park; close-up of monolith design. Itchimbia Hill actually lies slightly outside the central meridian; behind and to the left you can see El Panecillo, which lies directly on the main energy line. Source: Heidi Schultz

By Heidi Schultz