I've known Tiwanaku as a city name for a long time - in the computer game series Civilization, it is one of the proposed city names for the inca civilization. As I learned today, strictly speaking this is not correct. The Tiwanaku were predecessors of the inca, which were one of many civilizations that flourished in the wake of Tiwanaku's downfall.
The city of Tiwanaku was the political, religious and astronomical center of the Tiwanaku culture, which lasted for 2700 years, and covered an area of 600.000 square kilometers, almost twice the size of Germany.
Like many cultures in the southern hemisphere, they were greatly inspired by the southern cross constellation, using the cross not only for orientation, but its form also as a blueprint for some of their religious buildings. For example, this partly excavated pyramid in Tiwanaku:
The archeologists responsible for the ongoing excavations face a big problem. After the decline of Tiwanaku, the Spanish arrived and found hundreds of perfectly shaped stones just "lying around". So of course they took advantage of them, and did what they liked most: build churches. This one stands in the nearby village, and you can see that the stones look exactly like those used in the pyramid:
According to our guide, only 40% of the original stones remain in the ruins today. When you add to that the jumbled way in which the stones are found below the earth, you can imagine how big the puzzle is that the archeologists are trying to solve.
Another thing the Spanish did in their (rather successful) attempt to evangelize the native population was to deface statutes. The Tiwanaku culture had many richly engraved statutes laden with symbology, like this one:
Now what the Spanish did was try and cut off the statues' heads or noses, or, if that didn't work, add Christian symbols. You can see a cross a well as a triangle representing trinity in this picture:
Another artefact found among the ruins was the Puerta del Sol, the sun's door. Made out of a single piece of stone, the door is thought to represent a fairly detailed calendar with 12 months and 52 weeks, with an emphasis on the beginning of spring, symbolized by the big engraving of the sun god.
That the door is still in Bolivia today is actually quite lucky. In the 19th century, an English lord had found the door and intended to bring it back to England. But when the Pacific war broke out, he left Bolivia in a hurry and forgot to take the door...
The temple buildings in Tiwanaku were carefully aligned to emphasize certain astronomical events. This temple, for example, was built to catch the sunrise at the two days of equinox in a year.
The temple in the foreground features more than 100 stone heads with various shapes and faces in the walls:
Although the archeological site of Tiwanaku is already fascinating today, there's a lot of excavation work to be done, and a lot left to learn about the Tiwanaku culture. For example, what's inside the big pyramid? Tombs or treasures maybe? And why do all statutes have the right hand in the wrong direction? Why did the culture decline? What do the stone heads signify?
While the serious archeologists are trying to answer these questions, others have come up with an answer: apparently, some "scientists" think the culture was far too advanced and therefore must have been helped along by aliens...
The city of Tiwanaku was the political, religious and astronomical center of the Tiwanaku culture, which lasted for 2700 years, and covered an area of 600.000 square kilometers, almost twice the size of Germany.
Like many cultures in the southern hemisphere, they were greatly inspired by the southern cross constellation, using the cross not only for orientation, but its form also as a blueprint for some of their religious buildings. For example, this partly excavated pyramid in Tiwanaku:
The archeologists responsible for the ongoing excavations face a big problem. After the decline of Tiwanaku, the Spanish arrived and found hundreds of perfectly shaped stones just "lying around". So of course they took advantage of them, and did what they liked most: build churches. This one stands in the nearby village, and you can see that the stones look exactly like those used in the pyramid:
According to our guide, only 40% of the original stones remain in the ruins today. When you add to that the jumbled way in which the stones are found below the earth, you can imagine how big the puzzle is that the archeologists are trying to solve.
Another thing the Spanish did in their (rather successful) attempt to evangelize the native population was to deface statutes. The Tiwanaku culture had many richly engraved statutes laden with symbology, like this one:
Now what the Spanish did was try and cut off the statues' heads or noses, or, if that didn't work, add Christian symbols. You can see a cross a well as a triangle representing trinity in this picture:
Another artefact found among the ruins was the Puerta del Sol, the sun's door. Made out of a single piece of stone, the door is thought to represent a fairly detailed calendar with 12 months and 52 weeks, with an emphasis on the beginning of spring, symbolized by the big engraving of the sun god.
That the door is still in Bolivia today is actually quite lucky. In the 19th century, an English lord had found the door and intended to bring it back to England. But when the Pacific war broke out, he left Bolivia in a hurry and forgot to take the door...
The temple buildings in Tiwanaku were carefully aligned to emphasize certain astronomical events. This temple, for example, was built to catch the sunrise at the two days of equinox in a year.
The temple in the foreground features more than 100 stone heads with various shapes and faces in the walls:
Although the archeological site of Tiwanaku is already fascinating today, there's a lot of excavation work to be done, and a lot left to learn about the Tiwanaku culture. For example, what's inside the big pyramid? Tombs or treasures maybe? And why do all statutes have the right hand in the wrong direction? Why did the culture decline? What do the stone heads signify?
While the serious archeologists are trying to answer these questions, others have come up with an answer: apparently, some "scientists" think the culture was far too advanced and therefore must have been helped along by aliens...
