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TRADITIONS PRESERVED
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and fall was followed by centuries of barbarism, so that the people had almost forgotten its existence, while the tribes of the Collao were probably of another race, descendants of invaders. As the Bible and the literature and art of Greece and Rome were preserved through centuries of barbarism by the monasteries, so the religion and civilisation of the megalithic empire were preserved through centuries of barbarism by the Amautas of Tampu-tocco. In one case the dark period was succeeded by the age of the Renaissance, in the other by the enlightened rule of the Incas.
