Among the great variety of geometric signs in iconography, both in ceramics and textiles, the stepped symbol is probably the most transcendental and outstanding. Arthur Posnansky has captured the implicit magic of this symbol better than anyone else. We live in a techno-scientific age, in which archaeologists are forced to dig deeper and deeper for answers according to technical analysis by computers and other scientific advances. But the Andean world always eludes a single, concrete explanation, contributing, instead, its traditions of magic and mystery, its relationship with its own culture, and its own way of life, with the splendour of nature and its links with celestial bodies and telluric phenomena.