Stamp of the Staff God from the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku, Bolivia. The figure holds a spearthrower with an avian hook in its right hand.
In "Southern Andean Iconographic Series" the Staff God pose is a religious icon and a standardized pose reminiscent in its way of the standardized poses in Byzantine art.[1] The pose shows a front-facing human or human-like figure with vertical attributes, one in each hand.[2] There is no uniform representation of a "Staff God". Dozens of variations of "Staff Gods" exist. Some scholars think that some of these personages are possible depictions of Viracocha or Thunupa[3] (the Aymara weather god). However, there is little evidence to support the idea that these front-facing figures do represent deities. Some researchers point to their attributes and spatial organization which seem to indicate that they are ritual practitioners. Some attributes in their hands were identified as Qirus (Andean ritual cups), Snuff trays (used in ceremonial contexts) and Spear-throwers.[4][5] The "rays" radiating or sprouting out of the faces of Tiwanaku front-facing figures appear to have approximately the value of an aureole.[6] They may represent flows and distribution of energy. At the Wari site of Conchopata a vessel was found which shows a Staff God in which the "rays" can be interpreted as a Anadenanthera colubrina tree sprouting from its head whereas the circular elements do represent its seed pods.[7]
The oldest known depiction of a Staff God was found in 2003 on some broken gourd fragments in a burial site in the Pativilca River Valley (Norte Chico region) and carbon dated to 2250 BCE. This makes it the oldest religious icon to be found in the Americas.[8]
There are scholars who maintain that the Wari-Tiwanaku Staff God is the forerunner of the Incan principal gods, Sun, Moon, and Thunder.[9] It served as the primary religious icon of the entire Peruvian Andes, particularly during the Early Horizon (900-200 BC) and beyond.[10] The worship of Staff Gods spread to the Central Andes during the Middle Horizon (600-1000 CE)[11] This is supported by excavated Middle Horizon artifacts that resembled the Staff-God.[12]
Representations and iconography
The staff god was a basic iconography shared by the cultures of pre-Columbian Peru, particularly those occupying the northern coast and the southern highlands.[13] This is seen in the stylistic uniformity of the icons and representations, which suggested widespread adherence.[14]
There were varying depictions of the Staff-God among these Andean cultures. However, it was often portrayed as a deity in apotheosis, with hands always holding instruments of power.[15] For instance, an artifact found at Chavin de Huantar showed the deity holding a Spondylus and Strombus shells, which were female and male symbols, respectively. This representation indicated how the Staff-God wielded authority to maintain social harmony and the Andean ideal of gender complementarity.[10] Another Early Horizon sculpted stone, the Raimondi Stele, is perhaps the most popular representation and depicted the Staff-God as a sky or lightning god plunging down to earth.[16]
Representations of the southern highland staff god did not only carry motifs but were also presented with accompanying consorts in the form of deities painted on textiles used to decorate temple walls or ceramic vessels.[17]
The Staff God has one of the most important iconographical elements in central Andean archaeology and this is prominent in both portable and fixed art using different media such as stone, textile, and ceramic.[16] A form of the staff god, for example, takes a central role in the Sun Gate of the Tiwanaku culture, a single-stone monolith. Tunics and ceramics from both the Tiwanaku and Wari cultures of the Middle Horizon period showcase a similar god. Another example is the giant offering jars found at Qunchupata. They were painted with the Staff-God's image, one that bears resemblance to the god's depiction at the back of the Tiwanaku's Ponce Monolith.[18]
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↑ Max Uhle: Wesen und Ordnung der altperuanischen Kulturen. Colloquium Verlag, 1959, p.62: The staff in the figure's right hand clearly indicates the spear thrower due to the hook at the top, which - as is often the case with real spear throwers - has the shape of a bird („Der Stab in der rechten Hand der Figur bezeichnet durch den am oberen Ende sitzenden Haken, der — wie so oft bei wirklichen Speerschleudern — die Gestalt eines Vogels hat, deutlich die Speerschleuder.“)
↑ Alfons Stübel, Max Uhle: Die Ruinenstätte von Tiahuanaco im Hochlande des alten Perú: Eine kulturgeschichtliche Studie auf Grund selbständiger Aufnahmen. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1892, Second Part, p.23 (digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de).
↑ Matthew E. Biwer, et al: Hallucinogens, alcohol and shifting leadership strategies in the ancient Peruvian Andes. Antiquity 96.385 (2022): 142-158, p. 4
↑ Isbell, William; Silverman, Helaine (2008). Andean Archaeology III: North and South. New York: Springer Science & Business Media. p.307. ISBN9780387757308.
1 2 Henderson, Peter V. N. (2013). The Course of Andean History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. p.16. ISBN9780826353368.
↑ Eeckhout, Peter; Owens, Lawrence S. (2015). Funerary Practices and Models in the Ancient Andes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p.137. ISBN9781107059344.
↑ Salomon, Frank L. (2004). The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village. Durham: Duke University Press. p.78. ISBN9780822386179.
↑ Marcus, Joyce; Williams, Patrick Ryan (2009). Andean Civilization: A Tribute to Michael E. Moseley. Los Angeles, CA: The Costen Institute of Archaeology. p.93. ISBN9781931745543.
↑ Fagan (2012). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.674. ISBN9780195076189.
↑ Quilter, Jeffrey (2013). The Ancient Central Andes. Oxon: Routledge. p.208. ISBN9780415673099.
↑ Kleiner, Fred S. (2010). Gardner's Art through the Ages: Non-Western Perspectives, Thirteenth Edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. p.161. ISBN9780495573678.
↑ Silverman, Helaine; Isbell, William (2008). Handbook of South American Archaeology. New York: Springer Science & Business Media. p.736. ISBN9780387752280.
Viracocha is the great creator deity in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. According to the myth Viracocha had human appearance and was generally considered as bearded. According to the myth he ordered the construction of Tiwanaku. It is also said that he was accompanied by men also referred to as Viracochas.
Tiwanaku is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and include decorated ceramics, monumental structures, and megalithic blocks. In AD 800 the site has been conservatively estimated to have been inhabited by 10,000 to 20,000 people.
The Wari were a Middle Horizon civilization that flourished in the south-central Andes and coastal area of modern-day Peru, from about 500 to 1000 AD.
The Chavín culture is an extinct, pre-Columbian civilization, developed in the northern Andean highlands of Peru around 900 BCE, ending around 250 BCE. It extended its influence to other civilizations along the Peruvian coast. The Chavín people were located in the Mosna Valley where the Mosna and Huachecsa rivers merge. This area is 3,150 metres (10,330 ft) above sea level and encompasses the quechua, suni, and puna life zones. In the periodization of pre-Columbian Peru, the Chavín is the main culture of the Early Horizon period in highland Peru, characterized by the intensification of the religious cult, the appearance of ceramics closely related to the ceremonial centers, the improvement of agricultural techniques and the development of metallurgy and textiles.
The Lanzón is a granite stela that is associated with the Chavín culture. It is located in the Old Temple of Chavin de Huantar which rests in the central highlands of Peru. The Chavín religion was the first major religious and cultural movement in the Andes mountains, flourishing between 900 and 200 BCE. The Lanzón itself was erected during the Early Horizon period of Andean art circa 500 BCE and takes its name from the Spanish word for "lance," an allusion to the shape of the sculpture. The name is deceiving, as its form more closely resembles a highland plow which would have been used for agricultural purposes at the time. It is suspected because of this that the deity depicted is linked to agrarian worship.
Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era continued for a time after these in many places, or had a transitional phase afterwards. Many types of perishable artifacts that were once very common, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian monumental sculpture, metalwork in gold, pottery, and painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.
The Santa Valley is an inter-andean valley in the Ancash Region in the north-central highlands of Peru. Due to its location between two mountain ranges, it is known as Callejón de Huaylas, the Alley of Huaylas, whereas "Huaylas" refers to the territorial division's name during the Viceroyalty of Peru.
The Raimondi Stele is a sacred object and significant piece of art of the Chavín culture of the central Andes in present-day Peru. The Chavín were named after Chavín de Huantar, the main structure found in ruin at this archaeological site. The Chavín are believed to have occupied this space from 1500 BCE to 300 BCE, which places them in the Early Horizon period of Andean cultures. The Early Horizon came to rise after the spread and domination of Chavín art styles, namely the hanging pendant eye and anthropomorphism/zoomorphism of feline, serpent, and crocodilian creatures. The stele is seven feet high, made of highly polished granite, with a lightly incised design featuring these key artistic choices shown in the depiction of the Staff God. After not being found in situ, the stele now is housed in the courtyard of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología Antropología e Historia del Perú in Lima.
The Chakana is a stepped cross motif used by the Inca and pre-incan Andean societies. The most commonly used variation of this symbol today is made up of an equal-armed cross indicating the cardinal points of the compass and a superimposed square. Chakana means 'bridge', and means 'to cross over' in Quechua. The Andean cross motif appears in pre-contact artifacts such as textiles and ceramics from such cultures as the Chavín, Wari, Chancay, and Tiwanaku, but with no particular emphasis and no key or guide to a means of interpretation. The anthropologist Alan Kolata calls the Andean cross "one of the most ubiquitous, if least understood elements in Tiwanaku iconography". The Andean cross symbol has a long cultural tradition spanning 4,000 years up to the Inca Empire.
The Gate of the Sun, also known as the Gateway of the Sun, is a monolith carved in the form of an arch or gateway at the site of Tiahuanaco by the Tiwanaku culture, an Andean civilization of Bolivia that thrived around Lake Titicaca in the Andes of western South America around 500-950 AD.
Pumapunku or Puma Punku is a 6th-century T-shaped and strategically aligned man-made terraced platform mound with a sunken court and monumental structure on top that is part of the Pumapunku complex, at the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanacu, in western Bolivia. The Pumapunku complex is an alignment of plazas and ramps centered on the Pumapunku platform mound. Today the monumental complex on top of the platform mound lies in ruins.
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The Lima culture was an indigenous civilization which existed in modern-day Lima, Peru during the Early Intermediate Period, extending from roughly 100 to 650. This pre-Incan culture, which overlaps with surrounding Paracas, Moche, and Nasca civilizations, was located in the desert coastal strip of Peru in the Chillon, Rimac and Lurin River valleys. It can be difficult to differentiate the Lima culture from surrounding cultures due to both its physical proximity to other, and better documented cultures, in Coastal Peru, and because it is chronologically very close, if not over lapped, by these other cultures as well. These factors all help contribute to the obscurity of the Lima culture, of which much information is still left to be learned.
Inca mythology is the universe of legends and collective memory of the Inca civilization, which took place in the current territories of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, incorporating in the first instance, systematically, the territories of the central highlands of Peru to the north.
The Andean civilizations were South American complex societies of many indigenous people. They stretched down the spine of the Andes for 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from southern Colombia, to Ecuador and Peru, including the deserts of coastal Peru, to north Chile and northwest Argentina. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Caral or Norte Chico civilization of coastal Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3500 BCE. Andean civilization is one of the six "pristine" civilizations of the world, created independently and without influence by other civilizations.
Marcahuamachuco is an archeological site of Pre-Incan ruins in the La Libertad Region of Peru. Although less well-known than other sites, it is considered significant and has been referred to by archaeologists as "Machu Picchu of the North" and "The Jewel of La Libertad."
The history of human habitation in the Andean region of South America stretches from circa 15,000 BCE to the present day. Stretching for 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, the region encompasses mountainous, tropical and desert environments. This colonisation and habitation of the region has been affected by its unique geography and climate, leading to the development of unique cultural and socn.
Viracochapampa, Huiracochapampa, or Wiracochapampa is an archaeological site with the remains of a building complex of ancient Peru of pre-Inca times. It was one of the administrative centers of the Wari culture. Viracochapampa is located about 3.5 km north of Huamachuco in the region of La Libertad at an elevation of 3,070 metres (10,072 ft).
The Tiwanaku Polity was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku was one of the most significant Andean civilizations. Its influence extended into present-day Peru and Chile and lasted from around 600 to 1000 AD. Its capital was the monumental city of Tiwanaku, located at the center of the polity's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This area has clear evidence for large-scale agricultural production on raised fields that probably supported the urban population of the capital. Researchers debate whether these fields were administered by a bureaucratic state (top-down) or through a federation of communities with local autonomy. Tiwanaku was once thought to be an expansive military empire, based mostly on comparisons to the later Inca Empire. However, recent research suggests that labelling Tiwanaku as an empire or even different varieties of a state may even be misleading. Tiwanaku is missing a number of features used to define these types of polities: there is no defensive architecture at any Tiwanaku site or changes in weapon technology, there are no princely burials or other evidence of a ruling dynasty or a formal social hierarchy, no evidence of state-maintained roads or outposts, and no markets.
Cerro Baúl is an ancient political outpost and ceremonial center settlement in Peru established by the pre-Incan empire called the Wari. Cerro Baúl is a terraced mountain, 2000 feet above its surroundings, with a settlement on the cliff tops themselves and in the immediate surroundings. Among other finds are the remnants of a brewery and large buildings that may have been used for ceremonial feasting. There is evidence of damage that has been interpreted as a careful and deliberate destruction, by the city's own people, of several buildings prior to the mesa's being vacated.
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