Tiwanaku

The civilization of Tiwanaku (in Aymara, or Tiahuanaco , name of the modern city in Spanish), is a civilization pre INCA which dominated the southern half of the the central Andes between the 5th century and the 11th century.

Geography

The civilization of Tiwanaku occurred on southern bank of the Lac Titicaca, around the archeological site of the City of the Sun of Tiahuanaco. Its maximum extension is badly known, but archaeological research testifies to an expansion on vast territories in direction of the south and south-east of the lake Titicaca. These areas correspond to the current north of the Chile and to the west of the Bolivia.

History

The history of the civilization of Tiwanaku can be subdivided in four times:

Formative, of X E at the 3rd Intermediate century
, of the 3rd century at the 6th Traditional century
, of the 6th century at the end of the 10th century (the latest dating obtained of a monument of Tiwanaku to the carbon-14 goes up with 950)
Tardive, of the 10th century until the 16th century (but in the majority of the archaeological studies one regards the civilization of Tiwanaku as disappeared as of the 12th century, even as from the 11th century).

Culture

The civilization of Tiwanaku had a great control of the size of the stone and its neat architecture precedes that of Incas. Tiwanaku and Huari are in fact two companies independent but which diffused about the same culture, the second having been influenced by the first.

The City of the Sun

The temple of Kalasasaya and its surroundings

One of the principal current archeological sites of the civilization of Tiwanaku is the Cité of the Sun , place of celebration of the creative god Kon Tici Viracocha, it comprises many buildings with ceremonial vocation whose main thing is the temple of Kalasasaya, a vast closed enclosure.

The two more famous surrounding monuments are the Pyramide with seven degrees of Akapana and famous Porte of the Sun, considered by certain research a astronomical reference mark because of its alignment with the Sun, and by others like a observatory.

This one can seem a mini-counterpart of the temple of Kalasasaya, each one of its terraces being decorated monolithic statues on its edges. Another thesis interprets the monticule like a figuration of the mountains of the Andes cordillera. The top of the pyramid is occupied by boxes - of which the use remains unknown - laid out around an interior court.

Below Akapana a seizing contrast appears with the temple semi-underground. This one impresses by its clever system of drains crossing the pyramid to make spout out water in top of Akapana, which flowed then from one stage to another, the spectacle was to be located between that which a Rizière releases and that of a fountain… This splendid artificial cascade symbolizes certainly sources of the Nevado Illimani.

Finally monoliths, like those of Benett and Pounce, that certain archeologists bring closer to the Moai S of the Easter Island, are dispersed near the site.

Myth and reality

Certain research tends to show that the construction of the oldest city of this civilization would go back to more 10 000 years before J.C. These analyzes are based in particular on various constructions which seem quays and which are at a distance from the lake which would make go up their construction with 15 000 years before J.C., at the time where the lake skirted these constructions. This theory would be “ confirmée ” by drawings and engravings of animals whose species would have disappeared at the end of pleistocene i.e. towards 12 000 years before JC.

References

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