Tiwanaku
Trip Start
Dec 30, 2007
1
31
50
Trip End
Jun 22, 2008
La Paz,
Bolivia
Friday, April 11, 2008
This is Bolivia's most important ruin, so it is a shame that so little is known about it ...
This was the dominant civilisation in the Andes from 1500 BC to 1200 AD (actually various dates are given for the decline with the one I have given being the latest date), and from which the Incas may have emerged. No one knows why it disappeared - theories include dispersion caused by drought and dispersion caused by flood. The site is 19 km from the shore of Lake Titicaca, from where they obtained stone and which they revered and no one knows why they built so far from it. Perhaps the lake was larger then, but no one knows (surely a core sample would answer this question and the drought/flood debate).
The site is poorly preserved and not much to look at now but features a 7 stepped pyramidal platform 18m high with a sunken cross in the centre; a sunken courtyard featuring 175 distinctive faces (perhaps representing dominated cultures); portals carved from single slabs of stone and very large stone monoliths. Some of the pottery unearthed has curious features leading to speculation about contact with Asia - unusual hats, faces with moustaches and vaguely Asian features.
One curious feature is that all of the monoliths have the left hand (clasping a sceptre) carved backwards. No one knows why. Theories include error (laughable really - how could you execute an excellent carving and make the same error at least three times) and desire to have both hands facing, say, east.
It must have been a grand civilisation.
The sun gate
The stonework that remains is very well executed and uses a technique I've not encountered before. Blocks would have a groove cut into the top resembling a 'T' so when lined up the blocks would meet with a groove like a cartoon bone. These would be filled with bronze, and no mortar was used. The bronze has all been looted now. It is an interesting site, still being excavated, but frustrating because it sounds like even the possibilities are no more than guesses, and that little effort has been made to find evidence.
On the way we passed through the various desolate towns of the altiplano. These people scratch a living from the pretty infertile looking soil. It is cold here, 4000m high and bordered by snowy mountains. The houses are mud brick and tin and often incomplete. The roofs are often corrugated iron sheets weighed down with rocks. One of the bigger towns is Achacahilla (I think, the sign was illegible). It has a football stadium, complete with a grandstand. There was not a blade of grass on the field, and the far side was marked by a mud cliff. Women could sometimes be seen working in the fields. Men too, but mostly women.
It seems a hard place, though beautiful, and makes Tiwanaku's achievements all the more impressive. The Spanish originally settled on the altiplano but abandoned it after three days for the more sheltered valley of La Paz.
Post-script
It turns out that far more is known about this site than you would think from reading about it at the museum or talking to guides. For instance, the core samples I thought should have been done to settle the climate debate have been done. They are unambiguous. Both sediment samples and ice cores from the nearby glacier demonstrate decade-long drought conditions from about 1000AD. Lake Titicaca is prone to significant fluctuations in level. Within the last 12,000 years it is thought to have been 50 m higher than today, and as recently as 1985-86 its level rose by three meters in a wet year, submerging vast areas and destroying 11,000 hectares of crops. So that might be why Tiwanaku was built where it was.
