Tiwanaku

- 16.555 - 68.673611111111Koordinaten: 16 ° 33 ' 18 "S, 68 ° 40' 25 " W

Tiahuanaco ( Tiwanaku Aymara spelling ) is a major ruins of a pre-Inca culture to Tiawanacu in Bolivia. Tiahuanaco is located almost 4000 meters above sea level in the barren plateau of the Altiplano, 70 km west of La Paz on the main road to Desaguadero (border crossing to Peru ). The ruins of Tiahuanaco are among the most important archaeological sites in Bolivia and are since 2000 a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The meaning of the term is literally " Sit down, little Lama." To date, only about 1 percent of the total area of ​​the former city was exposed.

History

The historic Tiahuanaco was the religious and administrative center of the Aymara culture around Lake Titicaca in the period from 1500 BC to 1200 AD The first traces of settlement date from the 15th century BC, but only 300 BC Tiahuanaco started a center for religion and culture to grow and reached its peak between 600 to 900 AD

By Determining the age of the excavated ceramic objects chronological phases can be identified, which are BC between 300 BC and 1000 AD. The main phase of development could also be limited by multiple datings with the C14 method to the period between 600 to 900 AD, which is consistent with the chronology of the ceramic phases IV and V. In its heyday, the influence of Tiahuanaco from the Pacific coast, the Atacama Desert, to the province of Cochabamba as well as parts of present-day Argentina handed.

At the end of the first millennium Tiahuanaco was the climatic change and the associated drought victims. This meant that the city was abandoned for many years. Unlike previously assumed by Posnansky, Tiahuanaco was not directly on Lake Titicaca, but was dependent on rain agriculture, including at Tiahuanaco advanced irrigation and storage systems were built in the fields.

The strengthening of the Inca and other peoples that were previously suppressed by the Aymara, managed Tiahuanaco in its subsequent colonization return no more to rise to the former size.

Its most famous attraction is the Sun Gate. It is about three meters high and 3.75 meters wide, and was carved out of a single Andesitblock. After the demise of the culture probably overturned by an earthquake and broken into two parts, it was re-erected in 1908. Its weight is estimated at seven to twelve tons. There is in him a frieze with a deity holding two snake scepter in his hands. The mask-like face is framed by a ray-shaped headdress. This motif is also located on the Raimondi Stela from the Chavín de Huántar.

A few hundred meters away is the ruins Puma Punku, whose extremely precise carved monoliths should be part of an unfinished building in the Aymara culture. Already Francisco Pizarro in 1532 visited this field of ruins.

As the Inca reached the area, they found Tiahuanaco already deserted. In the Spanish colonial era historic site was looted and used until the 20th century as a source of building material.

Gallery

" El Fraile "

Sun Gate

Sun Gate

Gateway to Kalasaya platform

Sunken courtyard is surrounded by stone walls with relief figures

Sunken courtyard with its three pillars

Literature ( in chronological order )

  • Edmund Kiss: The Sun at Tiwanaku and Hörbigers Welteislehre. Leipzig 1937.
  • Bertrand Flornoy: Enigmatic Inca Empire - the story of the great Indian nation. Füssli, Zurich 1956.
  • Hans S.Bellamy: The calendar of Tiahuanaco - a disquisition on the time measuring system of the oldest civilization in the world. Faber & Faber, London 1956.
  • Alan Kolata: The Tiwanaku - portrait of an Andean civilization.Blackwell, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 1-55786-183-8.
  • Helene Gerov, ( et al. ): Technology from pre- Inca cultures - Tiahuanaco.H. Gerov, Vienna 1995.
  • Henri Stierlin: The Art of the Inca and their predecessors - from Valdivia to Machu Picchu. Belser, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7630-2349-6.
  • John Wayne Janúšek: Identity and Power in the Ancient Andes: Tiwanaku Cities Through Time ( Paperback ), London and New York: Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-94634-4.
  • David M.Jones: The illustrated history of the Incas - the extraordinary story of the lost world of the Andes, chronicling the ancient civilizations of the Paracas, Chavin, Nazca and Moche and other tribes and cultures of ancient South America. South Water London 2007, ISBN 1-84476-369-2
  • Walt Becker: The Missing Link. Thriller. Earthscan, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-426-50003-3.
  • Doris Kurella: cultures and structures of ancient Peru. Kröner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-520-50501-9
  • Fagan (ed.): Archaeological fantasies. How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public. ( Abingdon et al 2007).
  • Fagan: The seventy great mysteries of the ancient world. Unlocking the secrets of past civilizations (New Yor2001 ).
  • Arthur Posnansky: Tihuanacu. The cradle of American man (New York 1945).
Tiwanaku, La Paz Aymara language Desaguadero, Bolivia-Peru Aymara people Cochabamba Department Kalasasaya
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