San Pedro Cactusis a fast-growing columnar cactus native to the Andes Mountains at 2,000–3,000 m (6,600–9,800 ft) in altitude. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, and it is cultivated in other parts of the world.

The usual native preparation of the cactus involves boiling slices of the stem for a number of hours and then, once cooled, the resulting liquid is drunk. Sometimes the San Pedro is used in conjunction with other psychoactive plants, such as coca, tobacco,

 Like many other of the entheogenic substances used in the aboriginal religions of the Americas, the use of the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus is ancient and its use has been a continuous tradition in the Andesfor over 3,000 years.

The earliest depiction of the cactus is a carving which shows a mythological being holding the San Pedro. It belongs to the Chavín culture (c. 1400-400 BC) and was found in an old temple at Chavín de Huantar in the northern highlands of Peru, and dates about 1300 BC.

Artistic renderings of it also appear on later Chavín artefacts such as textiles and pottery (ranging from about 700-500 BC).

CHAVÍN900BC- 200BC

(Modern-day Peru)

• The Chavín culture is an extinct, prehistoric civilization, named for Chavín de Huantar, the principal archaeological site

• northern Andean highlands of Peru• Unknown what they called

themselves• The language spoken by the Chavín

people is not known, but it is likely now extinct

• The Chavín culture represents the first widespread, recognizable artistic style in the Andes.

• The Chavín religion was the first major religious and cultural movement in the Andes mountains

Chavín de Huantar• Chavín de Huantar is a ceremonial center.

• No military or fortification to the city

• A place of pilgrimage for believers

• It’s center would have held thousands of people at one time

• Ceremonies were drug-infused as to create a large trance.

• People were stimulated by music, underwater canals and blowing of conch shells.

• Hallucinogenic drugs were highly valued and celebrated for their power to bring the believer closer to the gods.

• *culture of transformation

ArtChavín art decorates the walls of the temple and includes carvings, sculptures and pottery. Artists depicted exotic creatures found in other regions, such as jaguars and eagles, rather than local plants and animals.

The feline figure is one of the most important motifs seen in Chavín art.

Eagles are also commonly seen throughout Chavín art.

An ornament like this would have been worn by an elite person to show not only their wealth and power but their allegiance to the Chavín religion.

Metallurgy in the Americas first developed in South America before traveling north, and objects such as this that combine wealth and religion are among the earliest known examples. Nose Ornament, c. 500-200 B.C.E

Art• Chavín art forms make extensive use

of the technique of contour rivalry.

• Contour rivalry: an artistic technique used to create multiple possible visual interpretations of an image

• The art is intentionally difficult to interpret and understand, since it was intended only to be read by high priests of the Chavín cult, who could understand the intricately complex and sacred designs.

• The Raimondi Stele is one of the major examples of this technique.

Raimondi SteleThe stele is seven feet high, made of highly polished granite, with a lightly incised design which is almost unnoticeable on the sculpture.

When the Raimondi Stela is viewed one way, the image depicts a deity holding two Huachuma cactus. His eyes look upward toward his large, elaborate headdress of snakes.

When flipped upside-down, the same image can be seen differently. The headdress can be "read" as a stacked row of smiling, fanged faces, while the deity's face has turned into the face of a smiling reptile. The deity's staffs also appear to be rows of stacked faces.

This technique speaks to larger Andean concerns of the duality and reciprocal nature of nature, life, and society.

Chavín de Huantar

• The Chavin civilization was centered on the site of Chavin de Huantar, the religious center of the Chavin people and the capital of the Chavin culture

• Chavin de Huantar was used as a religious center for ceremonies and events, perhaps a home for an oracle.

• the temple built there became an important pilgrimage site that drew people and their offerings from far and wide.

Over the course of 700 years, the site drew many worshipers to its temple who helped in spreading the artistic style of Chavín throughout highland and coastal Peru by transporting ceramics, textiles, and other portable objects back to their homes. 

Old Temple: the interior of the temple was riddled with a multitude of tunnels, called galleries.  

While some of the maze-like galleries are connected with each other, some are separate. The galleries all existed in darkness—there are no windows in them, although there are many smaller tunnels that allow for air to pass throughout the structure.

Archaeologists are still studying the meaning and use of these galleries and vents, but exciting new explorations are examining the acoustics of these structures, and how they may have projected sounds from inside the temple to pilgrims in the plazas outside.  It is possible that the whole building spoke with the voice of its god.

Model of the temple at Chavín de Huántar archaeological site. Peru, 900–200 B.C.E

Lanzónwedge-shaped stone over 15 feet tall, carved with the image of a supernatural being, and located deep within the Old Temple, intersecting several galleries.  

Located inside one of the ceremonial centers was el Lanzón.

Assumed to be a supreme deity of Chavín de Huántar.

The figure is anthropomorphic, with a feline head and human body

Devotees would be led into the maze of pitch-black tunnels, eventually coming face to face with the sculpture's snarling mouth and upturned eyes.

The worshipers' disorientation, in addition to the hallucinogenic effects of the San Pedro cactus they were given before entering, only heightened the visual and psychological impact of the sculpture.

The Lanzón depicts a standing figure with large round eyes looking upward.

Its mouth is also large, with bared teeth and protruding fangs.

The figure’s left hand rests pointing down, while the right is raised upward, encompassing the heavens and the earth.

***duality**

Both hands have long, talon-like fingernails

A carved channel runs from the top of the Lanzón to the figure’s forehead, perhaps to receive liquid offerings poured from one of the intersecting galleries.

Chaquitaclla

• Lanzón means “great spear” in Spanish, in reference to the stone’s shape, but a better comparison would be the shape of the digging stick used in traditional highland agriculture.

• That shape would seem to indicate that the deity’s power was ensuring successful planting and harvest.

The central image of the Lanzon functions as axis mundi, or pivot linking the heavens, earth and underworld.

Axis mundi: a symbol representing the center of the world where the heaven (sky) connects with the earth

TIWANAKU (TIAHUANACO OR TIAHUANACU)

300BC- 300AD

Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco) was the capital of the Tiwanaku empire between c. 200 - 1000 CE and is situated in the Titicaca basin.

At an altitude of 3,850 metres (12,600 ft) it was the highest city in the ancient world

Had a peak population of between 30,000 and 70,000 residents.

The Tiwanaku empire, at its largest extent, dominated the altiplano plains and stretched from the Peruvian coast to northern Bolivia and included parts of northern Chile.

It would become the center of one of the most important of all Andean cultures.

The architecture, sculpture, roads, and empire management of Tiwanaku would exert a significant influence on the later Inca civilization.

The monumental stepped entrance to the sacred Kalasasaya precinct at Tiwanaku, Bolivia

TiwanakuThe city of Tiwanaku near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca in the Bolivian

Its original name might have been chucara (Sun’s home) in Puquina language, or taypikala (central stone) in Aymara language.

The later Inca culture considered Tiwanaku to be the place of their genesis, where Viracocha created man.

During the time between 300 BC and AD 300 Tiwanaku is thought to have been a moral and cosmological center for the Tiwanaku empire to which many people made pilgrimages.

No standing buildings have survived to our days. Only public, non-domestic foundations remain, with reconstructed walls.

The name of the religion of Tiwanaku is unknown because they had no written language.

What is known, though, is that many of the gods worshipped by the people of Tiwanaku centered around agriculture

Tiwanaku’s location between the lake and dry highlands provided key resources of fish, wild birds, plants, and herding grounds for camelids, particularly llamas.

 The Titicaca Basin is the most productive environment in the area with predictable and abundant rainfall

Mythology• In mythology Lake Titicaca was

considered the center of the world, two islands on it were made into the sun and moon, and it was the site where the first race of stone giants was produced and subsequently, the human race.

• It has been suggested that many of the monuments at the site were placed in alignment with the sunrise and or the midday sun.

• However, the fact that many of Tiwanaku's monuments have been shifted about over the centuries makes the discovery of their original positions extremely difficult.

Artrenowned for its stone architecture and imposing, finely carved stone sculptures

characterized by large stones of exceptional workmanship

Their monumental structures were frequently fitted with elaborate drainage systems.

The red sandstone used in this site's structures has been determined by petrographic analysis to come from a quarry 10 kilometers away—a remarkable distance considering that the largest of these stones weighs 131 metric tons

One theory is that these giant andesite stones, which weigh over 40 tons, were transported some 90 kilometers across Lake Titicaca on reed boats, then laboriously dragged another 10 kilometers to the city

Feline Incense Vessel

This impressive vessel is in that shape and has a large modeled feline head with wide open eyes and bared teeth on one side of the rim.

The feline head is surrounded by a square "collar" with remains of a design on it.

On the outside of the vessel are two winged, big-footed felines standing in profile. Their round eyes are divided in half, with one side white and the other black

The inside of the bowl is blackened, suggesting its use as a censer. Smoke would have come from the animal's open mouth. Such incense burners were also made in the shape of llamas and raptors.

Snuff TabletThe snuff, prepared from leaves, resin, and seeds of various plants dried and finely ground, was used to cure various ailments, to alleviate pain and conditions associated with high altitudes, to provide alertness in war and hunting, and to induce trances during rituals and ceremonies.

Wooden snuff trays have a shallow rectangular cavity at one end and human or animal motifs or a combination of both at the other.

Embellished with open latticework topped by a crouching creature known as the "moon animal.”

From the top of the animal's head—it has big, round eyes and a gaping mouth—descends a flowing, manelike appendage with two large curls that meet the rounded-up tail.

The animal holds a trophy head in its massive front paws.

Figure with Ceremonial

Objects A small version of a type of columnar stone image that existed at Tiwanaku in sizes that reach twenty-four feet in height, this figure is thought to depict an elite lineage founder.

While the full-size sculptures may have been part of public rituals honoring ancestors, the smaller version may have been for private ceremonies conducted by upper-class families or clans.

The figure has a large head topped by a plain cap with a chin strap.

The figure holds two objects—possibly snuff trays—with stylized, symmetrical hands tightly clasped to his unclad chest.

A patterned kilt with a delicately incised design of stylized faces and squares in diagonals covers the lower body.

It is an arrangement known from textiles of the period

It is decorated with rayed medallions reminiscent of the rayed face of Tiwanaku's principal deity.

The Gate of the Sun

Monolith: constructed from a single piece of stone

The weight is estimated to be 10 tons

The carvings that decorate the gate are believed to possess astronomical and/or astrological significance and may have served a calendrical purpose

Details The lintel is carved with 48 squares surrounding a central figure. Each square represents a character in the form of winged effigy.

There are 32 effigies with human faces and 16 with condors' heads.

All look to the central motif: the figure of a man with his head surrounded by 24 linear rays that may represent rays of the sun. rays coming from his head which end in either a circle or a puma head

The styled staffs held by the figure symbolize thunder and lightning. The staff has condor heads in each hand

Some historians and archaeologists believe that the central figure represents the “Sun God”, while others have linked it with the Inca god Viracocha.