Tiwanaku Part 1: The City

lake titicaca is a natural wonder at 3 812 meters above sea level this majestic lake nestled in the andes is the world's highest navigable lake what many people don't realize about the lake titicaca basin is that it was the center of a thriving and sophisticated civilization that lasted for centuries and whose influence was felt far throughout the andes unlike other civilizations we've examined in south america this influence was not only cultural but political as well today we'll encounter one of the most amazing cultures in south america [Music] tiwanaku tiwanaku refers to both the culture and the principle site of that culture now this episode is going to be a bit different than previous episodes because this is going to be part one of two episodes as i researched and planned this i realized that a single episode would have been way too much and so i've split tiwanaku into two parts very nicely this episode will deal primarily with the site of tiwanaku the following episode will discuss the greater culture that tiwanaku inspired and the proliferation and spread of that culture with that settled let's get going like most cultures and peoples in south america that we've examined the people of tiwanaku left us no written histories and what we know comes from either archaeology or ethnographies of later imara people in the area when the spanish first arrived in the lake titicaca basin and asked the locals about the incredible ruins of tiwanaku no one could say anything about their builders spanish conquistador pedro de sieza de leon cryptically recounted i asked the natives if these buildings had been built in the time of the incas and they laughed at the question repeating what i have said that they were built before they reigned but that they could not state or affirm who built them however they had heard from their forefathers that all that are there appeared overnight subsequent visitors to tiwanaku assumed that the site had been an empty ceremonial center erected in the middle of a harsh environment it wasn't until the 20th century that people began to appreciate tiwanaku for the thriving center and cultural engine it had once been as we'll see there's much more to tiwanaku than meets the eye but before we dive into tiwanaku let's examine the geography a bit as i already mentioned lake titicaca is located way up in the andes and it's a huge lake the lake covers over 8 000 square kilometers of the valley and it's so large that there are multiple islands in the lake of particular interest is the ila del sol the island of the sun which was a sacred island to the tiwanaku and later the inca offerings from both tiwanaku and inca culture have been found on the island and it was an important ritual site surrounding the lake is the altiplano literally the high plains a landscape dominated by grasses and small shrubs and a lack of trees high winds and cold temperatures do not make life easy but the planes are great for herding llamas and alpacas and these animals would have been instrumental for the development of future civilizations agriculture is possible at these altitudes but it's a challenge the lake however provides a natural supply of fish and marine resources unfortunately the lake has now been overfished and polluted over the years and the native ecology has suffered tremendously but back in the day the locals could make use of these with their totoro reed boats which still sail the lake today the first evidence for people in the lake titicaca basin appears at about 8 000 years bp remember bp means before present it's different than bce by about 1400 bce settled life in the titicaca basin began to develop thanks to more intensive agriculture at this early stage there's already a common religious tradition being practiced by the peoples around the lake the name of this tradition is yaya mama which comes from the quechua words for father and mother this is characterized by its distinct temple design monumental stone sculpture ritual paraphernalia and iconography we aren't going to go over all of these in exquisite detail but i do want to highlight some common features that we'll see in tiwanaku yayama temple architecture is characterized by a sunken court surrounded by artificial platforms topped by various structures these structures had a variety of uses such as storage or ritual functions in regards to sculpture early yayama shows human animal and geometric designs carved in low relief on stone slabs as time goes on sculpture begins getting more and more three-dimensional with sculpture finally appearing in the round ritual paraphernalia included incense burners musical instruments such as conch trumpets and decorated pottery now after hearing all this i know what you may be thinking hey this is just like the sunken quartz monumental relief carved stones and conch trumpets we saw in northern peru at chaveen how cool however everything i've read emphatically stated that the titicaca basin lies outside of chevin influence and that these are independent developments or at least not developments from chevin even though these similarities are very evocative i'll defer to the expert opinion but i don't want you to think that i didn't notice them too during this time several sites began to grow in complexity most notably cherupa and pukara cherapa culture was very successful and fostered a common culture in the southern area around the lake cherapiculture reached its height between 900 bce and 100 bce the site of chirpa itself has many yaya mama elements most notably a sunken court surrounded by several temples that were built up over centuries no doubt the result of sophisticated organization and authority documenting the spread and influence of the cherupa isn't difficult because their artifacts can be found in the south beyond the lake titicaca basin cherupo is very impressive in its own right and it warrants more attention but we're not going to get into that here the real action was happening on the north side of the lake as cherpa influence began to wane in the south a powerful center was emerging in the northeast pukara around 200 bce pukara began to swell to truly urban proportions similar to other yayama tradition sites pukara's main architectural complex consists of several rectangular buildings surrounding a sunken plaza pukara-style ceramics can be found all over the lake basin and as archaeologist julio teo of chavin fame pointed out they bear several similarities to later tiwanaku ceramics another common element that they have is their sophisticated and precise stone carving which was beyond anything the chiropo were making or for that matter unlike anything in the andes at that time stone carving was an age-old practice in the lake titicaca basin papukara refined it it was a very successful and powerful state they likely controlled a hinterland beyond the city itself which would have been controlled by a central authority pukara artifacts can even be found as far south as chile from 200 bce to 200 ce pukara was the site in the lake titicaca basin but this episode's about tiwanaku so what happened exactly at about 100 ce there's a change in the wind for reasons that are still poorly understood the pukara city state collapses and its urban inhabitants take up residence in the surrounding countryside now tiwanaku didn't just appear out of nowhere to fill this vacuum it had been inhabited since at least 800 bce during the chiripa culture and by 200 bce it was developing into an impressive polity but by 200 ce it suddenly began a swift ascent assuming the influence and prestige that it had once shared with pukara archaeologist and anthropologist alan colada who studied tiwanaku for decades hypothesized that an important feature of tiwanaku's growth was its ability to control and organize local herding farming and fishing these different occupations could only be practiced in specific ecological zones at certain times of the year and require different skills perhaps the leadership at tiwanaku figured out a way to organize the local labor and resources to optimize the yields of these practices this success in turn drove increased economic and social complexity at tiwanaku which could then achieve a fully urban status now let's take a look at the site of tiwanaku itself tiwanaku is a shell of its former glory and yet it's still incredible to behold the site's most obvious feature is its exquisitely fashioned stone architecture unfortunately this finely cut stone has often been exploited as a source of spolia spolia is a fancy way of saying reused stone if you've ever been to rome mexico city or any other ancient city that's been inhabited for a long time you've likely seen newer buildings repurpose older stone blocks for building material like this the same thing has been going on at tiwanaku for centuries with much of the stone going to the bolivian capital of la paz in fact if you go to the modern town of tiwanaku the local church is built with spolia from the site and there's good reason why the masons of tiwanaku were true masters of their craft i mean just look at this stuff the precision is amazing some stones even have holes bored all the way through to attach ropes because they had to be dragged for over 20 kilometers from where they were quarried others have mortises cut into them for bronze clamps to hold different blocks together the skill on display here is incredible now there's a lot of colorful theories about how these were fashioned ranging from aliens to lost technology and even geopolymers which the dark quarters of the internet will assure you are far more likely than people just fashioning stone with stone tools but we aren't gonna get into those conspiracy theories because frankly they aren't worth our time and we've got a lot to cover so we're gonna move on the sight center is dominated by a large man-made pyramid the akapana north of this is the impressive kalasasaya and semi-subterranean temple this area was actually surrounded by an artificial moat which separated the sacred ceremonial city center with the rest of the city in a sense you can think of the city center like an island perhaps a recreation of one of the sacred islands in the lake to the southeast a short distance off is the second pyramid pumapunku i want to start with what's believed to be one of the oldest structures in the core the semi-subterranean temple now we've seen this form of architecture used in the titicaca basin for centuries so this is clearly a continuation of that earlier yaya mama tradition like other sunken courts and temples this structure is excavated into the ground and walled dotting the wall are several tenon heads each head is unique and no two are alike there's different theories as to what or who these heads represent such as local elites sacred emblems from outer communities or mythological figures regardless they all face the center of the court there are three yaya mama style stele which are most likely of non-local construction these were presumably appropriated by tiwanaku for prestigious legitimacy now in ancient times the semi-subterranean temple was dominated by a huge colossal sculpture that was later moved let me introduce you to one of the site's most famous works of art the bennett monolith this imposing piece was removed from the site in the 1930s and moved to the bolivian capital of la paz where it was openly displayed for years in 2002 it was finally moved back to tiwanaku where it's now displayed in the local museum but originally it would have stood in the center of the semi-subterranean temple the bennett monolith stands over seven meters high the figure is clad in ceremonial dress holding a snuff tray and a carrot a carrow is a ceremonial drinking cup usually reserved for drinking chicha or may's beer in religious rituals and social events a snuff tray would have been used for snuffing hallucinogens in rituals as well it's intricately carved with a design that features details of animals and crops and textiles the bennett monolith may have originally been seen as an axis mundi and indeed it was the center of the semi-subterranean temple and most likely face the kalasasaya on the western side of the temple it's likely that the bennet monolith was a ruler or lineage founder of the city the kalasasaya might be tiwanaku's most famous structure whenever you see a picture of tiwanaku this is most likely what you're shown and unfortunately there's something wrong with that and i'm going to tell you why now you know by now that i'm not a fan of conspiracy theories but bear with me on this when the site of tiwanaku was first documented those walls around the kalasasaya were not there only the large monoliths that are now enclosed by the wall you can see this clearly in these pictures of the site drawn in the 1860s and in early 20th century photographs it looks less like a walled enclosure and much more like a stonehenge so why are there walls today i haven't the fuckiest but at some point in the 20th century the walls seem to have been built or rebuilt when i was researching this i kept my eyes peeled for information about this but there are frustratingly few details and many sources don't even mention it for what it's worth whoever erected the walls did a great job and none of it looks out of place but why am i raving about this it's because those walls obscure an important feature and function of those monoliths the monoliths at the far end of the colossae align to the equinox and solstice which makes it a giant solar calendar for a civilization so dependent on agriculture tracking time was of the utmost importance and why not do it with some flourish to impress the masses in the middle of the colossae is another monolithic sculpture similar to the bennett monolith though not quite as large the ponce monolith just like his larger cousin he's also holding a carrow and snuff tray and he faces the semi-subterranean temple where he would have likely gazed at his counterpart both figures are assumed to be important lineage founders and their erection signals a shift in what was getting memorialized at the site in earlier construction there's an honoring of that yaya mama collective past with the erection of the ponson bennett monoliths we see a shift towards the memorializing of specific individuals of the recent past but it was done in a way that linked the current powers to those of a more ancient past around the entrance of the colossae are several rooms of unknown function looted long ago there's not much left but judging from the few remains found it's believed that these may have held the mummified remains of tiwanaku rulers we'll discuss the significance of that in part two now the final element of the colossae that i want to talk about is the gateway of the sun this huge entrance was carved from a single piece of stone that has since been cracked at the top of the gate is a staff-wielding god that by now should look pretty familiar we've seen this iconography before but this is not believed to be the same god from chevine instead it's believed to be a precursor to the aymara weather deity fanupa he's holding two staffs and is flanked by a series of kneeling or running figures many of them with avian features the great bolivian archaeologist arthur poznanski theorized that this design was actually an astronomical calendar others have suggested that it's meant to be a representation of the political authority at tiwanaku regardless of what it represents these carvings would have likely been inlaid with gold and other precious metals in antiquity it would have dazzled the viewer now in a way we really shouldn't be talking about the gateway of the sun here because it was moved there much later most scholars agree that it was most likely moved from pumapunku and you'll see why in a while when we talk about that now let's move to the biggest structure the akapana today the pyramid is badly eroded so much so that it was originally thought to be a natural feature of the landscape until archaeology proved otherwise now i know that this may not look that amazing but there's much more here than meets the eye so first let me show you a reconstruction that's better the pyramid would have been terraced and in the center would have been a sunken court in the shape of an andean cross the andean cross is a symbol that can be found in other places at the site today the pyramid top and sunken court are just a messy mountain pit thanks to years of looting one thing that you can't see in this reconstruction is that the various terraces were covered in a bluish-green gravel that served a purely aesthetic purpose this gravel which is familiar to anyone living in the area comes from nearby mountain ranges and is formed by erosion from mountain streams to anyone from tiwanaku this would have been instantly associated with the life-giving streams of the mountains and while we're talking about streams and water there's another interesting secret to the akapana and that's drainage canals these canals are huge one might even say over-engineered they would channel water collected by rain in the sunken court below the pyramid and out the ceremonial center and out to the nearby tiwanaku river thus we see that the akapana is a recreation of a sacred mountain like other mountains the channel rain underground until it emerges in runoff streams the akapana collects rainwater and then releases it at the base into that ceremonial core to the people of tiwanaku who depended on mountain runoff for their crops this was potent symbolism in fact we probably shouldn't even call it a pyramid but instead a man-made sacred mountain also at the top of the pyramid are the remains of several small buildings they appear to be residences for some type of elite most likely religious elite now nearby to the southwest is the second pyramid pumapunku similar to its sister pyramid it's in a pretty tattered state but its stone rubble gives a tantalizing glimpse of its former glory among them the most impressive are the stone gates which have now fallen it's very very likely that the gateway of the sun was once part of this group just like the acapana it has a sunken cord at the top to collect rainwater and drainage canals that go through the pyramid but there's something really interesting about this at the end of one drainage canal is a dog burial if the drainage system was working why is there a burial in the canal preserved because this was not washed away it's believed that these drainage canals never functioned as they did on the akapana why is this it's theorized that as tiwanaku grew the function of the akapana changed from a public shrine to a more private ritual space for the tiwanaku elite during this evolution the drainage system had ceased to be used because it was no longer connected with that public ritual in 600 ce when pumapunku was built it assumed the public functions that the akapana had once had when they rebuilt it they must have made it a priority to rebuild it exactly as the akapana had been before even if that included features that were by then vestigial finally we come to the elite residences of the site the petuni district just west of the colossae this was the area that housed all the tiwanaku rulers and their courts this area really got built up late in tiwanaku's life as the leadership reached the apogee of their power although there was earlier habitation there as well although the area has been heavily looted what does remain provides important clues about how the tiwanaku elite lived beautiful ceramic cups bowls drinking carrots and more have been recovered from the area which are indicative of ritual feasting and conspicuous consumption these elites would have been adorned in beautiful high quality textiles and jewelry the patuni residences were built of high quality adobe with canals to provide water and remove waste as they say cleanliness is next to godliness and the tiwanaku elite truly appreciated this notion although it's impossible to know the exact nature of tiwanaku's political structure there's a scholarly consensus that there was a very strong religious flavor to this leadership which is seen in the putini district's inclusion in the ceremonial religious center and its separation from the other areas of the site by now you may be asking what was the engine that fueled this incredible rise and transformation of a former backwater settlement as with many ancient states urban complexity and sophistication typically arise from a surplus or abundance of food and tiwanaku was no exception in this regard now one of lake titicaca's strengths was the food variety as we saw from norde chico fish can go a long way as a food source adding camelot herding and you've got good options but the big driver was agriculture now a cursory look at the altiplano and lake titicaca does not conjure the same images of agricultural fertility that we may associate with the nile the tigris and euphrates or the indus and the ganges indeed the altiplano can be a very risky environment for agriculture the weather annually fluctuates between a rainy and a dry season where even slight variations can have drastic consequences high winds can strip away the topsoil and ruin farming but the biggest problem is that the cold temperatures of the altiplano can create deadly frosts and destroy crops in a single stroke even today this is still a huge problem in the area the people of the lake basin had to devise an agricultural strategy to deal with these issues the ingenious answer to this was raised field agriculture now i realize that these are not the most exciting three words you'll hear today but bear with me raised field agriculture involved creating a raised bed on top of a foundation of stone and gravel this artificial bed due to the broken up and loosened soil allows a higher density of crops to be planted that normally would not be possible in a regular dry field in modern reconstructions of raised fields double cropping is much easier which allows farmers to double their crop production two bonuses already and we haven't even arrived at the most important part of this setup on either side of the raised field would be canals that would provide water to the crops planted on the mound now this may look deceptively simple but before you shrug this off let's go a little deeper still the canals aren't just providing waters to the fields they're acting as a solar heater during the day the water in the canals absorbs solar heat and because water is a poor conductor it retains that heat for a long time and then radiates that heat back into the field overnight which creates a heat envelope to protect the crops from frost the water temperature can rise as much as 10 to 20 degrees fahrenheit during the day so this can make a huge difference but wait there's more the canals have yet another important function as well they serve as an aquatic environment for various aquatic plants algae and organisms and in some case even small fish these organisms would help fertilize the soil in the canal and when the raised bed was exhausted all the farmers had to do was to scoop out some of the very well fertilized soil from the canal bed and mix it into the top soil in a pinch you could also use llama and alpaca manure or fish from the lake as additional fertilizer but this system ensured that fertile soil would always be available and that the crops would be watered and protected from the cold modern tests have shown that this method can be up to seven times more productive than traditional dry fields frankly it's brilliant now i should add that tiwanaku was not the only civilization that practiced ray's field agriculture you can find it practiced all over south america with different local adaptations and innovations but it played a vital role in the rise of the tiwanaku state and its prosperity rich production allowed a wealth of surplus food which freed up labor that could be mustered by the state for the great building projects that we've seen across the city as well as a prolific artisanal class at its height tiwanaku had an estimated population between 10 and 20 000 people when the elites began to harness the fruits of this system and this agricultural surplus it finally allowed for something that hitherto hadn't been seen in the southern andes an empire or was it an empire you'll have to tune in next time in our very next episode we'll explore how that empire grew and functioned we'll learn about its art and culture and the impact that both had on the region i apologize again for breaking this episode up into two parts but the next episode is already in production and should be released soon if you are watching this in the future you can just ignore that and click on the next episode and pick up right where you left off don't forget to like and subscribe and if you'd like to support the channel you can do so on patreon the link will be in the description below you can also follow us on facebook until next time take care and we'll see you in our next episode [Music] you

Channel: Ancient Americas

Views: 76,646

Rating: 4.882637 out of 5

Keywords: tiwanaku, Tiahuanaco, Tiahuanacu, ancient, americas, lake titicaca, ancient americas

Id: sybbruxeJu8

Length: 26min 53sec (1613 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021