Bennett Monolith

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Bennett Monolith
BO Tihuanako (149) (17042408319).jpg
Bennett Monolith on display
MaterialSandstone
Discovered1932
Discovered by Wendell C. Bennett
Present location Tiwanaku Site Museum, Tiwanaku, Bolivia
Culture Tiwanaku

The Bennett Monolith is a monumental stone sculpture from the pre-Columbian Tiwanaku civilization, located in present-day Bolivia. Standing approximately 7.3 meters (24 feet) tall and weighing around 20 tons, it is the largest known human-carved monolithic statue in the Andean region and the Western hemisphere.

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Originally called "Stela 10", the monolith was named after American archaeologist Wendell C. Bennett, who exhumed the artifact in 1932 from the Semi-Subterranean Temple at the Tiwanaku archaeological site. [1] [2] It was possibly detected earlier in 1903 by the French Scientific Mission. [3]

The monolith was moved and displayed in a plaza in La Paz, Bolivia. In 2000, it was moved back to Tiwanaku. The structure is currently housed at the Tiwanaku Site Museum, near where it was originally found.

The statue is made of reddish sandstone. [3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Silverman, Helaine; Isbell, William (4 April 2008). Handbook of South American Archaeology. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN   978-0-387-75228-0.
  2. ↑ Paolis, Lucio Tommaso De; Arpaia, Pasquale; Sacco, Marco (11 September 2024). Extended Reality: International Conference, XR Salento 2024, Lecce, Italy, September 4–7, 2024, Proceedings, Part III. Springer Nature. ISBN   978-3-031-71710-9.
  3. 1 2 Criales, Juan Villanueva (7 February 2024). "Drunken Mountains: Analysis of the Bennett and Ponce Monoliths of Tiwanaku (AD 500–1100) from a Multispecies Perspective". Latin American Antiquity: 1–21. doi: 10.1017/laq.2023.72 . ISSN   1045-6635.
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