The ruins of Tiahuanaco bear striking witness to the power of the empire that played a leading role in the development of the ancient Andean cultures.
The monumental remains, with its exceptional buildings, are examples of the ceremonial and public architecture and art, testifying the religious, cultural, and political significance of this civilization as one of the most important manifestations of the ancient Andean race.
The city of Tiahuanaco, capital of the powerful empire that dominated a large area of highlands of the Southern Andes and beyond, is located near the South shores of Lake Titicaca on the Andean High Plateau (Altiplano), at an altitude of 3,850 meters, in the today Province of Ingavi, Department of La Paz, Bolivia. Most of the ancient city, which was largely built from adobe, has been overlaid by the modern town. However, the monumental stone buildings of the ceremonial centre survive in the protected archaeological zones.
Tiahuanco Culture began as a small settlement which later flourished into a planned city. The maximum expression of the culture is shown in the massive architectural complex that reflects the strong and complex nature of its religious-political structure. The ceremonial-civic centre is spatially organized with the central point of it oriented toward the 4 cardinal points. It is constructed with impressive ashlars stones carved accurately and equipped with a very complex system of underground drainage controlling the flow of rain waters. The public-religious space of the city is shaped by a series of architectural structures that correspond to different periods of cultural accessions: Temple semi-underground, Kalasasaya's temple, Akapana's Pyramid, Pumapunku's Pyramid. In addition, the political-administrative area is represented by the palace of Putuni and Kantatallita.
The most imposing monument is the Pyramid of Akapana with 7 superimposed platforms with stone retaining walls rising to a height of over 18 meters. Only the lowest of these and part of one of the intermediate walls survive intact. It is surrounded by very well-preserved drainage canals. The walls of the small semi-subterranean temple are made up of 48 pillars in red sandstone. There are many carved stone heads set into the walls, symbolizing the power of the defeated enemies with which the wall was formed in the supernatural world.
To the North of the Akapana is Kelasasaya, a large rectangular open temple, used as an observatory or as a mean of communication with the other unseen dimensions. It is entered by a flight of 7 steps in the centre of the Eastern Wall. The interior contains 2 carved monoliths and the monumental Gate of the Sun, one of the most important religious expressions of the Tiahuanaco culture. It was made from a single slab of andesite, cut to form a large doorway with niches (Hornacinas) on either side. Above the doorway is an elaborate bas-relief frieze depicting a central deity, standing on a stepped platform, wearing an elaborated headdress, and holding a staff in each hand. The deity is flanked by rows of anthropomorphic birds and along the bottom of the panel there is a series of human faces. The ensemble has been interpreted as a cosmological calendar related to agricultural seasons in the unseen world to match the correct seasonal time in the physical world if the harmony between them prevailed.
The settlers of the city perfected the technology for carving and polishing different stone materials for the construction, which together with the architectural technology, enriched the monumental spaces.
The economic base of the culture is evidence through almost 50,000 agricultural fields, known locally as Sucacollos, characterized by their irrigation technology which allowed the different cultures to adapt to the climate conditions.
The Tiahuanaco culture was also characterized by the use of new technologies and materials for the architecture, pottery, textiles, metals, and basket-making. This innovations were subsequently taken up by succeeding civilizations and were extended as far as Cuzco.
Tiahuanco was the epicenter of knowledge due to the fact that it expanded its sphere of influence to the inter Andean Valleys and the Coast.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
THE CULT OF THE MOCHES.
Moche culture is one of the oldest in ancient Peru. Its central region was located in the Valley of the Moche River on the Northern Coast not far from the today's city of Trujillo. They lived in a few Oases fromed in the Valleys of the Coastal Rivers. The Oases were separated by a lifeless belt of desert, 10 kilometers wide. At the very same time the Valleys which repeatedly were flooded by Rivers yield good harvest for their inhabitants.
Moche culture developed in the area which had previously belonged under the Chavin rule. Moche religion and art shows signs absorbed from the earlier Chavin culture. Because the rich human-shaped pottery shows that the human typology of the Moche people includes Mongoloid as well as Negroid features, then it confirms that their ways of interaction with the outside phenomena was based in a supernatural way.
The 3 major phenomena in Moche religion are: 1) the cult of the warrior-priest as an official religion.
2) the shaman practice as one with the individual. 3) the cult of the dead.
Knowledge of the Moche pantheon is sketchy. Al Paec the Creator god or the son of the Creator, is depicted in Moche art with ferocious fangs, a puma or jaguar headdress, and snake earrings, and was considered to dwell in the High Mountains. The earplugs were deftly inlaid with shell and turquoise giving them a view of the insight of its Creator god as a quick-neat-witted force and they tried to represent it in the physical world. Also the earrings were decorated with figures of warriors wielding mace and shield. The earplugs were 4 inches wide and they were worn by the Mochica leaders. Human sacrifices, especially of war prisoners but also Mochica citizens, were done in a clear sense of subordination or power to the one entitled to it. Their blood, representing the energy or substance moving in the physical world, was offered in ritual goblets to their Creator god."Si" was considered the supreme deity. This goddess controlled the seasons and storms that had such an influence on agriculture and daily life. The goddess was seen both at night and during the day. Women played a prominent role in Moche religion and ceremony as it is shown in murals of the tomb of a priestess known as "the lady of Cao" (la senora de Cao). The painted bean warrior figure is a conventional motif in Moche decorations, since they represent the ones defending the Moche power. The maces, round shields, darts and conical crested helmets represented actual fighting gear of the warrior vested in the unseen world. They held a high rank level within society.
Another deity who frequently appears in Moche art is the half-man, half-jaguar Decapitator god. He is often represented holding a sacrificial knife (Tumi) in one hand and the severe head of the conquered force shown as a human head in the other hand. Such detailed scenes of daily life, skilled at rendering movement and action in the painting, mirror the real life events that the Moche people encounter day by day. At the foot of the Moon Pyramid 40 skeletons of men under 30 years of age were found. They were mutilated and thrown from the top of the pyramid. The bodies lie above soft ground which suggests that the power invested in these men were broken in similar stages the skeleton is shown. Ceremonial goblets containing traces of human blood were found also, and costumed and be-jeweled individuals almost exactly like the religious entities depicted in Moche murals, were found there.
The Moche were gifted potters and superb metalworkers. Potters created lifelike representations, and modeled portraits of actual people on their clay effigy vessels. Probably only a person of the nobility, able to carry a great deal of power, enough to defend its people from the judgment of the supernatural forces, had his portrait done in this manner.
The pink jar clay figures, modeled in a naturalistic style, were also used for Moche people in burial rites. The turban was standard headgear. The natural clay gave the vessel its pink tone.
Exquisite gold headdresses and chest plates, gold, silver, and turquoise jewelry (ear-spools and nose ornaments), textiles, tumi-knives, and copper bowls and drinking vessels, found in their tombs reflect the highest level of achievements in their respective craft.
Many fine examples of Moche art have been unearthed from Tombs at Sipan, Saint Joseph of Moro, and the Old Shrine Cao (Haca Cao Viejo), which are the amongst some of the best preserved burial sites from any Andean culture.
Moche culture developed in the area which had previously belonged under the Chavin rule. Moche religion and art shows signs absorbed from the earlier Chavin culture. Because the rich human-shaped pottery shows that the human typology of the Moche people includes Mongoloid as well as Negroid features, then it confirms that their ways of interaction with the outside phenomena was based in a supernatural way.
The 3 major phenomena in Moche religion are: 1) the cult of the warrior-priest as an official religion.
2) the shaman practice as one with the individual. 3) the cult of the dead.
Knowledge of the Moche pantheon is sketchy. Al Paec the Creator god or the son of the Creator, is depicted in Moche art with ferocious fangs, a puma or jaguar headdress, and snake earrings, and was considered to dwell in the High Mountains. The earplugs were deftly inlaid with shell and turquoise giving them a view of the insight of its Creator god as a quick-neat-witted force and they tried to represent it in the physical world. Also the earrings were decorated with figures of warriors wielding mace and shield. The earplugs were 4 inches wide and they were worn by the Mochica leaders. Human sacrifices, especially of war prisoners but also Mochica citizens, were done in a clear sense of subordination or power to the one entitled to it. Their blood, representing the energy or substance moving in the physical world, was offered in ritual goblets to their Creator god."Si" was considered the supreme deity. This goddess controlled the seasons and storms that had such an influence on agriculture and daily life. The goddess was seen both at night and during the day. Women played a prominent role in Moche religion and ceremony as it is shown in murals of the tomb of a priestess known as "the lady of Cao" (la senora de Cao). The painted bean warrior figure is a conventional motif in Moche decorations, since they represent the ones defending the Moche power. The maces, round shields, darts and conical crested helmets represented actual fighting gear of the warrior vested in the unseen world. They held a high rank level within society.
Another deity who frequently appears in Moche art is the half-man, half-jaguar Decapitator god. He is often represented holding a sacrificial knife (Tumi) in one hand and the severe head of the conquered force shown as a human head in the other hand. Such detailed scenes of daily life, skilled at rendering movement and action in the painting, mirror the real life events that the Moche people encounter day by day. At the foot of the Moon Pyramid 40 skeletons of men under 30 years of age were found. They were mutilated and thrown from the top of the pyramid. The bodies lie above soft ground which suggests that the power invested in these men were broken in similar stages the skeleton is shown. Ceremonial goblets containing traces of human blood were found also, and costumed and be-jeweled individuals almost exactly like the religious entities depicted in Moche murals, were found there.
The Moche were gifted potters and superb metalworkers. Potters created lifelike representations, and modeled portraits of actual people on their clay effigy vessels. Probably only a person of the nobility, able to carry a great deal of power, enough to defend its people from the judgment of the supernatural forces, had his portrait done in this manner.
The pink jar clay figures, modeled in a naturalistic style, were also used for Moche people in burial rites. The turban was standard headgear. The natural clay gave the vessel its pink tone.
Exquisite gold headdresses and chest plates, gold, silver, and turquoise jewelry (ear-spools and nose ornaments), textiles, tumi-knives, and copper bowls and drinking vessels, found in their tombs reflect the highest level of achievements in their respective craft.
Many fine examples of Moche art have been unearthed from Tombs at Sipan, Saint Joseph of Moro, and the Old Shrine Cao (Haca Cao Viejo), which are the amongst some of the best preserved burial sites from any Andean culture.
MOCHICA, THE DYNAMIC PEOPLE.
The Mochica civilization flourished along the Northern Coast and Valleys of ancient Peru, in particular, in the Chicama and Trujillo Valleys. They were contemporary with the Nazca civilization further down the Coast.
The Mochica people dominated the River Valleys and were a dynamic, original, almost aggressive in a positive way, who worked out many of the social patterns later taken over in the religious and political roots of the Inca empire. The Moche state spread to eventually cover an area from the Huarmey Valley in the South to the Piura Valley in the North, and they even extended their influence as far as the Chincha Islands.
The Mochica society society was based on large-scale production and mass labor. They had a small noble class that organized the rules of production and work of the rest.
Their graphically painted pottery vessels show the power of bejeweled chieftains borne about on litters. Visitors of other ranks are shown dining at a different level at the same site or dimension, presented as a lower table than the one of the chieftains. The quipu, used during the time of the Inca empire, represented the levels in which the administration of power had to be done by using knots and different colors of the rainbow.
Artisans were full-time specialists in their crafts, and one pottery picture shows a line of weavers working away under a foreman's eye in the mass production of textiles. They expressed themselves in art with such a degree of aesthetics that their naturalistic and vibrant murals, ceramics, and metal work are amongst the most highly regarded in America. Historians compare the pottery of these North Coast people of ancient Peru with the art of classical Greece. In all these Mochica pottery there is a strong preoccupation with the power of the entities and things in the material or physical world in relation with the unseen world. Men are seen farming, fishing, hunting, and defending themselves from attacks.
The time of the Mochica seems to have been a kind of cosmological morning for the Andean thinking.
The Mochica built its capital city at the foot of the White Mountain (Cerro Blanco) and once covered an area of 300 hectares. Besides urban housing, plazas, storehouses, and workshop buildings, it also has impressive monuments which include two massive adobe brick pyramid-like mounds. These monumental structures, in their original state, display typical traits of Moche architecture: multiple levels, access ramps, and slanted roofing.
By far, the biggest monument to be found on the Coast is the Pyramid of the Sun (Huaca del Sol) near the modern city of Trujillo, estimated to contain 140 million adobe bricks each stamped with a maker's mark. It has 4 tiers and stands 40 meters high today. Originally it stood over 50 meters high, covered an area of 340x160 meters. A ramp on the North side gives access to the summit, which is a platform in the form of a Cross. The smaller structure known as the Pyramid of the Moon (Huaca de la Luna), stands 500 meters away and was built using some 50 million adobe bricks. It has 3 tiers and is decorated with friezes showing Moche mythology and rituals. The entire structure was once enclosed within a high adobe Brick Wall. Both pyramids were originally brightly colored in red, white, yellow, and black, and were used as an imposing setting to perform sacred rituals and ceremonies.
The European invaders later diverted the Rio Moche in order to break down the Pyramids and loot the tombs within, suggesting that the pyramids were also used by the Moches for generations as a home for the souls of their important persons according to its role.
The Mochica people dominated the River Valleys and were a dynamic, original, almost aggressive in a positive way, who worked out many of the social patterns later taken over in the religious and political roots of the Inca empire. The Moche state spread to eventually cover an area from the Huarmey Valley in the South to the Piura Valley in the North, and they even extended their influence as far as the Chincha Islands.
The Mochica society society was based on large-scale production and mass labor. They had a small noble class that organized the rules of production and work of the rest.
Their graphically painted pottery vessels show the power of bejeweled chieftains borne about on litters. Visitors of other ranks are shown dining at a different level at the same site or dimension, presented as a lower table than the one of the chieftains. The quipu, used during the time of the Inca empire, represented the levels in which the administration of power had to be done by using knots and different colors of the rainbow.
Artisans were full-time specialists in their crafts, and one pottery picture shows a line of weavers working away under a foreman's eye in the mass production of textiles. They expressed themselves in art with such a degree of aesthetics that their naturalistic and vibrant murals, ceramics, and metal work are amongst the most highly regarded in America. Historians compare the pottery of these North Coast people of ancient Peru with the art of classical Greece. In all these Mochica pottery there is a strong preoccupation with the power of the entities and things in the material or physical world in relation with the unseen world. Men are seen farming, fishing, hunting, and defending themselves from attacks.
The time of the Mochica seems to have been a kind of cosmological morning for the Andean thinking.
The Mochica built its capital city at the foot of the White Mountain (Cerro Blanco) and once covered an area of 300 hectares. Besides urban housing, plazas, storehouses, and workshop buildings, it also has impressive monuments which include two massive adobe brick pyramid-like mounds. These monumental structures, in their original state, display typical traits of Moche architecture: multiple levels, access ramps, and slanted roofing.
By far, the biggest monument to be found on the Coast is the Pyramid of the Sun (Huaca del Sol) near the modern city of Trujillo, estimated to contain 140 million adobe bricks each stamped with a maker's mark. It has 4 tiers and stands 40 meters high today. Originally it stood over 50 meters high, covered an area of 340x160 meters. A ramp on the North side gives access to the summit, which is a platform in the form of a Cross. The smaller structure known as the Pyramid of the Moon (Huaca de la Luna), stands 500 meters away and was built using some 50 million adobe bricks. It has 3 tiers and is decorated with friezes showing Moche mythology and rituals. The entire structure was once enclosed within a high adobe Brick Wall. Both pyramids were originally brightly colored in red, white, yellow, and black, and were used as an imposing setting to perform sacred rituals and ceremonies.
The European invaders later diverted the Rio Moche in order to break down the Pyramids and loot the tombs within, suggesting that the pyramids were also used by the Moches for generations as a home for the souls of their important persons according to its role.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
THE ANCIENT COASTAL PEOPLE OF PERU.
Starting about 500 BC, a strong and distinctive culture began to surface in 3 small River Valleys on the virtually rainless Coast South of what is now Lima.
In this new society, which produced no known large buildings, ancestor worship seems to have been the overriding theme of how people lived their lives in a supernatural way. It is called the Paracas culture, after the modern name of the Desert peninsula on which its richest burial vaults were found. More than 350 Paracas mummy bundles have been dug up, containing mantles buried with the dead.
These people wove magnificent clothes for their dead. The border figures in their garments represent the manner in which the supernatural powers were understood. Some garments bear minuscule designs that faithfully represent embroidered decorations found on other life-sized garments. Some wear wrap-around dresses of a style worn by women in ancient times; others wear two-part outfits, associated with men. The largest and most beautiful decorated garments were mantles that draped over the shoulders, and fell to the knee. After more than 2,200 years, the ancient colors, still glow with beauty.
So fine is the weaving that threads run up to 500 to the square inch.
Some mantles have the design of feline faces painted on it that recall the Chavin motif. Others are embroidered with such description of supernatural entities which were keepers of the gates in their respective unseen worlds. Some figures are winged men with snakes coiled around their eyes, splitting headed condors gobbling fish, and cat-faced men with knives. Most of the animals and plants that appear were tied to species still found on the South Coast, and many human figures wear or carry items careful enough to relate it to the site and time where it was done.
Their jewelry correspond to specimens formed from thin sheets of gleaming gold, representing the careful way of taking something from the womb of the earth and wear it. These include forehead ornaments shaped like a bird with outstretched wings; hair spangles that were disk or star shapes that dangle from the wing tips of the forehead ornament; slender, feather-shaped headdress plumes; and mouth masks.
Whole communities worked, sitting side-by-side only in the embroidering of these clothes for the death.
Their masterpieces of astonishing virtuosity were done thread by thread with simple tools, too delicate and considered ceremonial, and finished so carefully on both sides that it is almost impossible to distinguish which is the correct side. The central cloth and its framing dimensional border are created by different techniques, both with perfect reversibility, except for a variation of 3 border figures, that instead of being duplicated on the back as if flipped in mirror image, appear in back view on one side of the cloth, thereby designating a "front" and "back" to the textile. So fine is the weaving that threads run up to 500 to the square inch. The central cloth and the border hold different color palettes suggesting that they were created at different times. The triple-layer border were designed with color outer veneers of wool "crossed-looping" that envelop inner cotton cores of looping or weaving. While the cotton is off-white, the wool is dyed in jewel-bright tones. White cotton was grown in Coastal Valleys and wool came from camelids that live at high altitudes in the Andes Mountains.
Some of the dead were warriors and priests able to move between worlds, with especially rich mantles and copper battle-axes and gold ornaments at their sides. They were found buried with other people, men and women, who also had the power to move between the unseen worlds to picture and record the events in their minds and transport the information it in the design of the mantle and garments. As witnesses of the event they were able to communicate it to the different levels of entities in the supernatural world and to the people in the world of the living, about to whom the power went. The garments represented the covering of such power in life and in death. The severed heads brandished by some entities, sometimes sprout flourishing plants that grew without respect to the rules, ended decapitated, and the enforcer retain the power. The snake-like streamers that flow from some entities indicates the supernatural qualities of the event. The rules of good and evil were pretty much understood in all levels and harmony between them was a major thing for the people in the living world, their lives depended on it.
The population did not live according to the manner of other cultures in the World. They surfaced from a very dry ground and had a mission to do. When they depicted clothing, always they added a face, or an animal body to the loose ends of fabrics hanging behind a wearer, considering it a precious carrier of life and harmony between the Worlds.
In this new society, which produced no known large buildings, ancestor worship seems to have been the overriding theme of how people lived their lives in a supernatural way. It is called the Paracas culture, after the modern name of the Desert peninsula on which its richest burial vaults were found. More than 350 Paracas mummy bundles have been dug up, containing mantles buried with the dead.
These people wove magnificent clothes for their dead. The border figures in their garments represent the manner in which the supernatural powers were understood. Some garments bear minuscule designs that faithfully represent embroidered decorations found on other life-sized garments. Some wear wrap-around dresses of a style worn by women in ancient times; others wear two-part outfits, associated with men. The largest and most beautiful decorated garments were mantles that draped over the shoulders, and fell to the knee. After more than 2,200 years, the ancient colors, still glow with beauty.
So fine is the weaving that threads run up to 500 to the square inch.
Some mantles have the design of feline faces painted on it that recall the Chavin motif. Others are embroidered with such description of supernatural entities which were keepers of the gates in their respective unseen worlds. Some figures are winged men with snakes coiled around their eyes, splitting headed condors gobbling fish, and cat-faced men with knives. Most of the animals and plants that appear were tied to species still found on the South Coast, and many human figures wear or carry items careful enough to relate it to the site and time where it was done.
Their jewelry correspond to specimens formed from thin sheets of gleaming gold, representing the careful way of taking something from the womb of the earth and wear it. These include forehead ornaments shaped like a bird with outstretched wings; hair spangles that were disk or star shapes that dangle from the wing tips of the forehead ornament; slender, feather-shaped headdress plumes; and mouth masks.
Whole communities worked, sitting side-by-side only in the embroidering of these clothes for the death.
Their masterpieces of astonishing virtuosity were done thread by thread with simple tools, too delicate and considered ceremonial, and finished so carefully on both sides that it is almost impossible to distinguish which is the correct side. The central cloth and its framing dimensional border are created by different techniques, both with perfect reversibility, except for a variation of 3 border figures, that instead of being duplicated on the back as if flipped in mirror image, appear in back view on one side of the cloth, thereby designating a "front" and "back" to the textile. So fine is the weaving that threads run up to 500 to the square inch. The central cloth and the border hold different color palettes suggesting that they were created at different times. The triple-layer border were designed with color outer veneers of wool "crossed-looping" that envelop inner cotton cores of looping or weaving. While the cotton is off-white, the wool is dyed in jewel-bright tones. White cotton was grown in Coastal Valleys and wool came from camelids that live at high altitudes in the Andes Mountains.
Some of the dead were warriors and priests able to move between worlds, with especially rich mantles and copper battle-axes and gold ornaments at their sides. They were found buried with other people, men and women, who also had the power to move between the unseen worlds to picture and record the events in their minds and transport the information it in the design of the mantle and garments. As witnesses of the event they were able to communicate it to the different levels of entities in the supernatural world and to the people in the world of the living, about to whom the power went. The garments represented the covering of such power in life and in death. The severed heads brandished by some entities, sometimes sprout flourishing plants that grew without respect to the rules, ended decapitated, and the enforcer retain the power. The snake-like streamers that flow from some entities indicates the supernatural qualities of the event. The rules of good and evil were pretty much understood in all levels and harmony between them was a major thing for the people in the living world, their lives depended on it.
The population did not live according to the manner of other cultures in the World. They surfaced from a very dry ground and had a mission to do. When they depicted clothing, always they added a face, or an animal body to the loose ends of fabrics hanging behind a wearer, considering it a precious carrier of life and harmony between the Worlds.
Monday, December 26, 2016
SUPERNATURAL FORCES REPRESENTED IN ART.
The art styles of Early Andean people was assumed to reflect religious cults and characterize societies on the verge of becoming civilizations. Although we still see a lot of cosmological information in their art, we now realize that a great deal of it referred to the superb military prowess of the individuals who commissioned the art, as well as to their relationships with supernatural ancestors.
One widespread iconographic theme was the powerful forces of nature and its three-dimensional representations. Some of the most widespread motifs were abstract referents to Earth, in its angry form as an Earthquake, and Sky, in its angry form as a Lightning.
To show the supernatural nature of these forces, craftsmen combined parts of different animals to depict them, thereby creating fantastic creatures not seen in nature. For example, parts of crocodiles or snakes could be combined with parts of birds, fish, sharks, or felines. In many cases artists used the part of the animal with its symbolic meaning that 'the part stands for the whole'; thus a puma or jaguar's canine teeth could stand for the puma or jaguar, or a crocodile's foot could stand for the crocodile.
Earth appeared as an anthropomorphic or a zoomorphic being. It has a cleft in its head, and vegetation was shown sprouted from that cleft, or also be depicted as a crocodile, or symbolized by a crocodile's foot. Honoring the forces of the Earth as remote ancestors of the noble class, was achieved by creating pavements of blocks in a particular way bearing the symbols of them. By doing so, the noble line would assert its supernatural ties to Earth, as one source of its supernatural power.
The Chavin art style is named for the site of Chavin of Huantar, the epicenter for stone monuments, while other regions excelled at gold working, feather working, ceramics, and weaving. The center is situated at 3,150 m in the Mosna Valley, where more than one hundred stone sculptures were found. Additional sculptures have been found at secondary centers below Chavin, such as Runtu, Pojoc, Waman Wain, Gotush, and Yura-yako.
Chavin art was representational, using similes, metaphors, and comparison by substitution, to combine human figures with attributes of raptorial birds, pumas or jaguars, caymans, snakes, and spiders. An example of a simile in Chavin art, put into words, would be "his hair is like snakes," as shown on a monument. The corresponding metaphor would be "his snaky hair". Comparison by substitution would be "a nest of snakes". Common Chavin metaphors included combining the talons of an eagle with the body of a man to convey the image of a supernatural and successful warrior and combining the features of a spider, a man, and a bag of trophy heads to convey the image of submission power from the heads being invested upon the carrier.
Chavin art often emphasizes an animal's most frightening body part, such as the jaw or the foot of a cayman, the canines of a puma or jaguar, or the talons of a condor or hawk. The image of a war leader's role is particularly clear by depicting individuals holding trophy heads or weapons. The battleground represented involves supernatural forces coming from the Underworld, Middle World, and Upper World. Each level holding its own forces with the respective degree of ferocity and aggressiveness, and the association of these attributes with its respective warriors, and the weapons used for battle.
The representation of Earth and Sky can be seen on monuments like the Tello Obelisk, where Earth and Sky are seemingly symbolized by two supernatural caymans. The depiction, a split representation of the Andean cosmos is seen to be the case of parallel evolution. Though pumas or jaguars are often cited as the key animal in Chavin art, the cayman was actually the most important reptilian animal force in the corpus of Chavin sculpture.
One widespread iconographic theme was the powerful forces of nature and its three-dimensional representations. Some of the most widespread motifs were abstract referents to Earth, in its angry form as an Earthquake, and Sky, in its angry form as a Lightning.
To show the supernatural nature of these forces, craftsmen combined parts of different animals to depict them, thereby creating fantastic creatures not seen in nature. For example, parts of crocodiles or snakes could be combined with parts of birds, fish, sharks, or felines. In many cases artists used the part of the animal with its symbolic meaning that 'the part stands for the whole'; thus a puma or jaguar's canine teeth could stand for the puma or jaguar, or a crocodile's foot could stand for the crocodile.
Earth appeared as an anthropomorphic or a zoomorphic being. It has a cleft in its head, and vegetation was shown sprouted from that cleft, or also be depicted as a crocodile, or symbolized by a crocodile's foot. Honoring the forces of the Earth as remote ancestors of the noble class, was achieved by creating pavements of blocks in a particular way bearing the symbols of them. By doing so, the noble line would assert its supernatural ties to Earth, as one source of its supernatural power.
The Chavin art style is named for the site of Chavin of Huantar, the epicenter for stone monuments, while other regions excelled at gold working, feather working, ceramics, and weaving. The center is situated at 3,150 m in the Mosna Valley, where more than one hundred stone sculptures were found. Additional sculptures have been found at secondary centers below Chavin, such as Runtu, Pojoc, Waman Wain, Gotush, and Yura-yako.
Chavin art was representational, using similes, metaphors, and comparison by substitution, to combine human figures with attributes of raptorial birds, pumas or jaguars, caymans, snakes, and spiders. An example of a simile in Chavin art, put into words, would be "his hair is like snakes," as shown on a monument. The corresponding metaphor would be "his snaky hair". Comparison by substitution would be "a nest of snakes". Common Chavin metaphors included combining the talons of an eagle with the body of a man to convey the image of a supernatural and successful warrior and combining the features of a spider, a man, and a bag of trophy heads to convey the image of submission power from the heads being invested upon the carrier.
Chavin art often emphasizes an animal's most frightening body part, such as the jaw or the foot of a cayman, the canines of a puma or jaguar, or the talons of a condor or hawk. The image of a war leader's role is particularly clear by depicting individuals holding trophy heads or weapons. The battleground represented involves supernatural forces coming from the Underworld, Middle World, and Upper World. Each level holding its own forces with the respective degree of ferocity and aggressiveness, and the association of these attributes with its respective warriors, and the weapons used for battle.
The representation of Earth and Sky can be seen on monuments like the Tello Obelisk, where Earth and Sky are seemingly symbolized by two supernatural caymans. The depiction, a split representation of the Andean cosmos is seen to be the case of parallel evolution. Though pumas or jaguars are often cited as the key animal in Chavin art, the cayman was actually the most important reptilian animal force in the corpus of Chavin sculpture.
THE WORSHIP OF FELINES.
The Inca people was the largest empire in the South American high lands. They used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of Western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including, besides Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, Western and South Central Bolivia, North West Argentina, North and North Central Chile, and Southern Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of the Old World.
The world the Inca conquered was already an area of high cultures of some 30 centuries' standing. The time of great cultural advance flourished along what is now Peru soon after 1,000 BC at Cupisnique on the Northern Pacific Coast and Chavin de Huantar in the Highlands.
The Cupisnique culture had a distintive style of adobe clay architecture but shared artistic styles and religious symbols with the later Chavin culture which arose in the same area. Tombs beneath the sands have yielded thick Cupisnique stirrup-spout jugs and highly decorated clay jars. A Temple was discovered in the Lambayeque Valley that sheds some light on the connection between both cultures because of shared iconography. Some other related temples have also been discovered in the area.
Cupisnique and Chavin shared the same gods and the same architectural and artistic forms, showing intense religious interaction among the cultures of the Early Formative Period from the North Coast to the Andes and down to the Central Andes
The Chavin culture is a major center that developed on the Northern Highlands that gave its name to the entire first era of Andean civilizations. A large part of the Chavin population was based on an agricultural economy. Chavin the Huantar contain ruins and artifacts originally constructed by its predecessors. The citadel is located 160 miles (250 km) North of Lima, Peru, at an elevation of 3,150 meters (10,300ft), East of the White Cordillera ant the star of the Conchucos Valley. The site is formed at the merging of 2 Rivers: the Mosna and the Huanchecsa. Today a massive stone temple, flat-topped pyramid surrounded by lower platforms, dominates the site. It is 3 stories high and honeycombed with stone-lined passages and rooms. It has a special system of ventilating shafts and is a remarkable piece of complex architecture. But the most important features of the Temple are the grotesque stone sculptures and carved slabs that are set into its laboriously smoothed walls.
These massive, monstrous carvings have a special style. Whether they represent men, animals, or birds, the figures are shown with a feline mouth. This mouth, which might be that of the a puma, or jaguar, is everywhere. On one monster figure it is affixed at 12 different places on the body. On a condor it is shown as a continuation of the beak. It glares from the head and tail of a snake. Though this image is found in early American art from Mexico to Bolivia, nowhere else is it depicted with such power. It is a symbol that conveyed to ancient Andean people the idea of supernatural power, and its appearance on men and other creatures was enough to make them supernatural.
Not many people seem to have lived continuously at Chavin. No graves have been found there. The symmetrical layout, the careful construction and the nature of the carvings strongly imply that Chavin was a major religious center.
The feline element spread far and wide from Chavin; its influence is to be seen in the continuing preocupation of later generations of Andean artists with the figure of the puma.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
THE TEMPLE OF THE CONDOR.
The extraordinary beauty that resides in Machu Picchu can be seen both in its ruins in the Valley as well as in their wonderful adjoining places that offer the unique flora and fauna of this Valley of the Andes located in Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu Mountain systems.
The wonder that this place offers is its impressive air show showing the majestic flight of the condor. To the Incas the condor was considered a messenger from earth to the entities governing the supernatural World. The bird was a very sacred symbol which obtain the status of King of the Andes, able to be seen from any location of Machu Picchu.
In the sector to the East of the Citadel are the constructions of greater importance for the Inca people, buildings which were designed to be all oriented to the Sun to facilitate measurements of the constellations and the stars. The Temple of the Condor, as well as the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the 3 Windows, the Sacred Rock, and the residential complex of gardens and patios that served as a monastery for the Virgins of the Sun (Acllawasi) are in this sector.
The Temple of the Condor has its location in the South East of the urban sector of Machu Picchu. It is a natural rock formation that began to take shape by the elements millions of years ago and the Inca people skillfully shaped the rock into the outspread wings of the condor in flight. It shows a series of irregularities in the design of different buildings in a very peculiar way, whose purpose was the melt with the environment, producing a fusion with the profile offered by the rocks of the surrounding area. The Rock massif presents naturally the shape of a bird with wings extended, fact that gave understanding to the Inca people that the settlement designated by their deities for worship and celebration of sacred rituals, were manifested by the reflection of this Rock when illuminated by the Sun projecting the figure of a bird.
On the temple's floor there is a rock carved in the shape of the head, used as a sacrificial altar, and neck feathers, completing the figure of a 3-dimensional bird.
The Condor represented spirit and higher levels of consciousness, so the Inca people considered the condor to be of elevated importance in the animal and spirit kingdom.
Under the temple there is a small cave that used to contain a mummy as a way of continuity into the afterlife. A prison like complex stands directly behind the temple, and is comprised of human-size niches and an underground maze of dark dungeons. An accused citizen wold be placed into the niches for up to 3 days to await deliberation of his fate. He could be put to death for sins such as laziness, lust, or theft. In that case they were consumed by wild animals that were locked with them together inside the dungeon.
To the South of the temple is the residential area where the Inca noble class lived, which communicates with the temple through a series of courtyards. They showed signs of having been used for the breeding of Guinea Pigs.
It is possible that the Inca people were capable of building Machu Picchu in the shape of a condor, despite the extremely difficult location and the differences in altitude. The figure of an enormous bird with wings spread out, including the neck and head is only visible from higher locations. One of the best sites is the top of Huayna Picchu, but it is also visible from the Intipunku. Keep in mind that the Inca capital Cuzco, has the shape of a puma.
The wonder that this place offers is its impressive air show showing the majestic flight of the condor. To the Incas the condor was considered a messenger from earth to the entities governing the supernatural World. The bird was a very sacred symbol which obtain the status of King of the Andes, able to be seen from any location of Machu Picchu.
In the sector to the East of the Citadel are the constructions of greater importance for the Inca people, buildings which were designed to be all oriented to the Sun to facilitate measurements of the constellations and the stars. The Temple of the Condor, as well as the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the 3 Windows, the Sacred Rock, and the residential complex of gardens and patios that served as a monastery for the Virgins of the Sun (Acllawasi) are in this sector.
The Temple of the Condor has its location in the South East of the urban sector of Machu Picchu. It is a natural rock formation that began to take shape by the elements millions of years ago and the Inca people skillfully shaped the rock into the outspread wings of the condor in flight. It shows a series of irregularities in the design of different buildings in a very peculiar way, whose purpose was the melt with the environment, producing a fusion with the profile offered by the rocks of the surrounding area. The Rock massif presents naturally the shape of a bird with wings extended, fact that gave understanding to the Inca people that the settlement designated by their deities for worship and celebration of sacred rituals, were manifested by the reflection of this Rock when illuminated by the Sun projecting the figure of a bird.
On the temple's floor there is a rock carved in the shape of the head, used as a sacrificial altar, and neck feathers, completing the figure of a 3-dimensional bird.
The Condor represented spirit and higher levels of consciousness, so the Inca people considered the condor to be of elevated importance in the animal and spirit kingdom.
Under the temple there is a small cave that used to contain a mummy as a way of continuity into the afterlife. A prison like complex stands directly behind the temple, and is comprised of human-size niches and an underground maze of dark dungeons. An accused citizen wold be placed into the niches for up to 3 days to await deliberation of his fate. He could be put to death for sins such as laziness, lust, or theft. In that case they were consumed by wild animals that were locked with them together inside the dungeon.
To the South of the temple is the residential area where the Inca noble class lived, which communicates with the temple through a series of courtyards. They showed signs of having been used for the breeding of Guinea Pigs.
It is possible that the Inca people were capable of building Machu Picchu in the shape of a condor, despite the extremely difficult location and the differences in altitude. The figure of an enormous bird with wings spread out, including the neck and head is only visible from higher locations. One of the best sites is the top of Huayna Picchu, but it is also visible from the Intipunku. Keep in mind that the Inca capital Cuzco, has the shape of a puma.
THE GREAT LIFE OF THE ANDEAN CITIES.
In the Inca society and its way of life, everyone knew his place. They had a very rigid caste system.
The Inca organized their 5 million subjects into "the Land of the 4 Quarters." They also divided their capital city of Cuzco, with its neatly gridded streets, into 4 quarters, and required visitors from the provinces to stay in their own appropriate sections. Each quarter was ruled by a noble.
From one end of the Andes to the other, the state ran factories for making all the cloths, ceramics, and gold ornaments required for ceremonial use and for the nobility. Every craftsmanship was organized in a way that everyone had what they needed. People were required to contribute either labor or goods to the state.
In every sizable town and at intervals along the main roads were large stone warehouses which the state required the population to keep stocked against a local shortage or an imperial requisition.
The Inca also exacted tribute from everybody they conquered, keeping track of their accounts by a system of tying knots in a set of coloring strings called 'quipu.'
Religious education was strictly for the young nobles who would command armies and govern provinces. They were mainly the members of the Inca royal clan, but sons of conquered rulers were also taken into the governing caste. These nobles wore rich fabrics, bright feathers and gold ornaments, that represented the nature of their power. By rigid rule the working class had to dress in a different and simple fashion.
The emperor himself wore clothes of the finest vicuna wool that were meticulously disposed of at the end of a single day's wear. He was lord over the priesthood, government, and army. He was considered the son of the divine sun god, "Inti", and, in order to keep the bloodline pure, he ususally married only his sister, though it was possible for the emperor to have as many as 700 concubines and any number of natural children.
The Inca were masters at shaping and fitting stones. They built their most spectacular monuments in places already fortified by nature. The main fortress protecting Cuzco, their imperial headquarters, were built out of rock and defended by a thick wall 1,600 feet long. The Inca city of Machu Picchu, another Inca stronghold with its mighty masonry, was constructed of blocks of granite. The Inca fashioned their blocks without metal tools of any kind, and their stone walls were put together without any cement or sealer. The city was modeled as if it were a condor's nest and its function was to protect the Eastern flank against Amazonian raiders, and so ingeniously adapted to the site that it seems a part of the mountains. Before beginning work on large buildings, Inca builders made detailed clay models.
As imperial organizers, these people took over the last of a 3,000-year-old series of cultures and reshaped the religion, government and roads they inherited.
The Inca excelled at engineering. They built roads 3,250 miles long, piped irrigation water through mountain tunnels, hung 200-foot suspension bridges across Andean canyons.
They were able to take an empire-wide census. For that purpose, they appointed subordinate officials right down to the precinct level: the highest level held responsibilities over 10,000 men, the next over 1,000 men, the next over 500 men, and the lowest over groups of 50 and 10 men. All except the last two ranks were rated as Inca nobles. Each reported to his superior by state couriers, who dashed in relays up and down the mountainsides on the emperor's paved roads.
The Incas, as imperial organizers, rate with the Romans, but the Inca ruled an empire in the clouds, with its headquarters at 11,000 feet.
Friday, December 23, 2016
THE INCAS WERE THE CROWN OF THE ANDEAN RACE.
One of the first and big civilizations in Middle America, the Maya, had to cut its way out of the jungle. The Aztecs had to conquer their way through Mexico. And far to the South of the American continent, the Andean race, thrust upward through some of the World's most forbidding terrain: the towering mountains and desert coast of Andean Peru.
The empire of the Inca race, which crowned the early civilizations of the Southern American continent, ruled from a capital 11,000 feet in the clouds.
The Andean civilization centered far more than that of Middle America on the material techniques of social life: planning big cities and irrigation works, building highways and a network of communication regardless the condition of the terrain, perfecting the domestic art of weaving and pottery making. The passion of the Inca race for organization in every field extended even to their art work. But the best in Andean art was produced by the race of the ones who preceded the Inca.
Civilization around the World usually traces its origins to the time when men settled down and started cultivating rather than hunting their food. The early race of Andean people showed a versatile talent for domesticating plants and a very disciplined and well developed way of doing it.
Some 5,000 years ago they were already familiar with the cultivation of squash, peppers, gourds, beans, and cotton. By 900 BC, the North and the South areas in which people established their living quarters, grew up with corn as its basic food crop. The corn of the Andes is a very distinctive one from the other types of corn that grow in Middle America. It grows at a very high altitude absorbing from the terrain and the atmosphere the medicinal properties of which it is known for.
The ancient Andean race were better farmers that their European contemporaries, since the way of doing farming had to deal with so many variations of the ground and ecosystems that had to be studied in order to make the soil produce food. For that purpose they terraced the mountainsides and built vast irrigation systems. Then they were able to domesticate the potato, the tomato, the yam, and the lima bean. In textiles, they found a source of wool by taming the llama and alpaca.
Since the ancient race of Andean people never developed writing, all that is known of their early progress is what archaeologists have been able to find out. They traced 6 distinct cultural stages in the succession of the Andean civilization. The earliest of these, named 'Chavin de Huantar', a 2,800-year-old ruin in the Northern Highlands of Peru, lasted from about 1,200 to 200 BC, and is the period in Andean prehistory when religion seems to have absorbed all high culture completely. At their huge ceremonial center, the Chavin people created a resplendent temple and powerful stone carvings.
In the 2nd of these eras, the Paracas people, named for the South Coast peninsula where their tombs and other remains were found, flourished. They wove textiles that have seldom been surpassed by civilized human.
In the 3rd period, the Nazca culture succeded the Paracas while the so-called Mochica people arose on the North Coast. The Mochica people evolved a complicated class society, laid roads and invented new agricultural techniques, since their subdued neighbors in the nearby River Valleys had different ways of treating the ground. These techniques were later passed on to the Incas. Their pottery is the finest made by the early race of Andean people.
In the 4th period, a single culture originating around Tiahuanaco in the Southern Andes imposed its leadership in art and in war throughout most of Peru. The spread of this culture was not long-lived.
A 5th period opened, and new forces sprang up again along the Coast, notably the Chimu people in the North.
The 6th and last development set the stage for the Andean civilization: the emergence by conquest and annexation of a completely unified state - the Inca empire.
The empire of the Inca race, which crowned the early civilizations of the Southern American continent, ruled from a capital 11,000 feet in the clouds.
The Andean civilization centered far more than that of Middle America on the material techniques of social life: planning big cities and irrigation works, building highways and a network of communication regardless the condition of the terrain, perfecting the domestic art of weaving and pottery making. The passion of the Inca race for organization in every field extended even to their art work. But the best in Andean art was produced by the race of the ones who preceded the Inca.
Civilization around the World usually traces its origins to the time when men settled down and started cultivating rather than hunting their food. The early race of Andean people showed a versatile talent for domesticating plants and a very disciplined and well developed way of doing it.
Some 5,000 years ago they were already familiar with the cultivation of squash, peppers, gourds, beans, and cotton. By 900 BC, the North and the South areas in which people established their living quarters, grew up with corn as its basic food crop. The corn of the Andes is a very distinctive one from the other types of corn that grow in Middle America. It grows at a very high altitude absorbing from the terrain and the atmosphere the medicinal properties of which it is known for.
The ancient Andean race were better farmers that their European contemporaries, since the way of doing farming had to deal with so many variations of the ground and ecosystems that had to be studied in order to make the soil produce food. For that purpose they terraced the mountainsides and built vast irrigation systems. Then they were able to domesticate the potato, the tomato, the yam, and the lima bean. In textiles, they found a source of wool by taming the llama and alpaca.
Since the ancient race of Andean people never developed writing, all that is known of their early progress is what archaeologists have been able to find out. They traced 6 distinct cultural stages in the succession of the Andean civilization. The earliest of these, named 'Chavin de Huantar', a 2,800-year-old ruin in the Northern Highlands of Peru, lasted from about 1,200 to 200 BC, and is the period in Andean prehistory when religion seems to have absorbed all high culture completely. At their huge ceremonial center, the Chavin people created a resplendent temple and powerful stone carvings.
In the 2nd of these eras, the Paracas people, named for the South Coast peninsula where their tombs and other remains were found, flourished. They wove textiles that have seldom been surpassed by civilized human.
In the 3rd period, the Nazca culture succeded the Paracas while the so-called Mochica people arose on the North Coast. The Mochica people evolved a complicated class society, laid roads and invented new agricultural techniques, since their subdued neighbors in the nearby River Valleys had different ways of treating the ground. These techniques were later passed on to the Incas. Their pottery is the finest made by the early race of Andean people.
In the 4th period, a single culture originating around Tiahuanaco in the Southern Andes imposed its leadership in art and in war throughout most of Peru. The spread of this culture was not long-lived.
A 5th period opened, and new forces sprang up again along the Coast, notably the Chimu people in the North.
The 6th and last development set the stage for the Andean civilization: the emergence by conquest and annexation of a completely unified state - the Inca empire.
MAN'S STATUS WAS SHOWN BY WHAT HE WORE.
After the establishment of the Inca rule, a great society that developed in the Andes Mountains of South America. The Inca territory stretched almost the length of the Andes Mountain Range, from North to South, more that 2,500 miles wrapping the Andes Highlands, and from the Pacific Ocean in the West to the Amazon River Basin in the East, wrapping the coastal deserts, and the jungle lands.
To manage and communicate across their vast distance and challenging ground, the Inca leaders came to rely on a system of roads. They built 2 main routes, the coastal and the inland road, which was called the Royal Road. Smaller roads connected them. It was as impressive as that of ancient Rome, but built at such unbelievable height on a very challenging ground. About 15,000 miles of road linked all corners of the empire. The roads crossed tropical jungles, high mountains, and raging rivers.
Inca leaders used the roads to travel throughout the empire. Shelters were placed every 15 to 30 miles to give travelers places to rest. The symbolic way in which they were designed represented the journey of the soul after it left the body.
The roads allowed the emperor at Cuzco to communicate with the leaders in distant places. The Incas sent messages by an elaborate relay system, using runners called 'chasquis.' A 'chasqui' was a selected type of human being, trained to carry the message in two different ways, one was using a special set of strings called 'quipu' where knots were tied at different levels strings of different colors, the other was to memorize words that helped to complete the information carried in the 'quipu.' Messenger stations were built every couple of miles along the main roads. Messengers went from one station to the next and they were able to travel more than 250 miles a day. Its effectivity was superb. Incas did not use written language.
The center of the Inca power was wrapped in the capital city of Cuzco, located in a High Valley in the Andes Southern Mountains. According to one Myth, the Inca people were descended from the Sun power known as 'Inti.' Inti commanded his son, Manco Capac, to rise out of the waters of Lake Titicaca in the Highlands of the Southern Peru. Manco Capac then founded the Inca Tribe.
The Incas continue and improved the ideas and institutions that had been pioneered by earlier cultures, especially from the Moche and the Chimu. The Moche lived along the Northern Coast from about 100 BC. They built cities, dug irrigation canals, and developed special classes of workers. The Chimu kingdom, also in Northern Peru, from about 1000 AC. Like the Moche , the Chimu built well-planned cities and used elaborate irrigation methods. They preserved the artistic traditions of the Moche and passed them on, being received by the Incas. They understood that this type of information was connected with astral forces that needed to be balanced and maintained. The chasquis were a type of messengers that new how to communicate with this astral forces.
The world of the Inca have shown a clear definition of a man's status. It was based on a strictly organized class structure. People who were from the Inca lineage by blood were originally from Cuzco.
As they grew in power, its class structure became more complex but each maintaining its special role and responsibility.
Only members of the nobility or the royal family could wear elaborated ornaments of gold and precious stones. The most socially significant of all such ornaments of rank were men's earplugs.
The reason of such differentiation was because of the origin of the soul, focusing the connection of this elemental soul with its place in the unseen world and the purpose it held in the world of the living managing the forces that existed inside and outside of it.
One of the high points of a well-born Inca's life came, after a rigorous schooling in the many arts of wrestling, boxing, fighting and long-distance marching, when a teen-age novice knelt before the emperor himself to have his ears pierced by a gold dagger. When the youth rose, having uttered no cry, he was a man of class. Gradually the hole was made bid enough to bear the weight of the nobleman's huge earplugs. Some of the pendants were enormous, and before many years the young nobleman's earlobes dropped nearly to the shoulders because of the weight of gold carried on it.
When the Europeans arrived to the continent and met the Incas, they were shocked and impressed by the custom that they couldn't understand, and simply they called them "the big ears."
The Incas regarded the earplug as a thing of great beauty because it represented the value of the soul according to its 3 levels of existence.
The art of working in precious metals was highly advanced because of its meaning and connection to the unseen world. Every metal carried its very particular soul. Since the frequency of its language, according to them, dealt with the cosmological forces of the universe they had an extreme care in dealing with it, because they understood the consequences upon maltreating them. But for the european invaders, it was the lure of that precious metals that drew them to scale the Andes in 1532, kidnap the emperor and overturn his empire.
To manage and communicate across their vast distance and challenging ground, the Inca leaders came to rely on a system of roads. They built 2 main routes, the coastal and the inland road, which was called the Royal Road. Smaller roads connected them. It was as impressive as that of ancient Rome, but built at such unbelievable height on a very challenging ground. About 15,000 miles of road linked all corners of the empire. The roads crossed tropical jungles, high mountains, and raging rivers.
Inca leaders used the roads to travel throughout the empire. Shelters were placed every 15 to 30 miles to give travelers places to rest. The symbolic way in which they were designed represented the journey of the soul after it left the body.
The roads allowed the emperor at Cuzco to communicate with the leaders in distant places. The Incas sent messages by an elaborate relay system, using runners called 'chasquis.' A 'chasqui' was a selected type of human being, trained to carry the message in two different ways, one was using a special set of strings called 'quipu' where knots were tied at different levels strings of different colors, the other was to memorize words that helped to complete the information carried in the 'quipu.' Messenger stations were built every couple of miles along the main roads. Messengers went from one station to the next and they were able to travel more than 250 miles a day. Its effectivity was superb. Incas did not use written language.
The center of the Inca power was wrapped in the capital city of Cuzco, located in a High Valley in the Andes Southern Mountains. According to one Myth, the Inca people were descended from the Sun power known as 'Inti.' Inti commanded his son, Manco Capac, to rise out of the waters of Lake Titicaca in the Highlands of the Southern Peru. Manco Capac then founded the Inca Tribe.
The Incas continue and improved the ideas and institutions that had been pioneered by earlier cultures, especially from the Moche and the Chimu. The Moche lived along the Northern Coast from about 100 BC. They built cities, dug irrigation canals, and developed special classes of workers. The Chimu kingdom, also in Northern Peru, from about 1000 AC. Like the Moche , the Chimu built well-planned cities and used elaborate irrigation methods. They preserved the artistic traditions of the Moche and passed them on, being received by the Incas. They understood that this type of information was connected with astral forces that needed to be balanced and maintained. The chasquis were a type of messengers that new how to communicate with this astral forces.
The world of the Inca have shown a clear definition of a man's status. It was based on a strictly organized class structure. People who were from the Inca lineage by blood were originally from Cuzco.
As they grew in power, its class structure became more complex but each maintaining its special role and responsibility.
Only members of the nobility or the royal family could wear elaborated ornaments of gold and precious stones. The most socially significant of all such ornaments of rank were men's earplugs.
The reason of such differentiation was because of the origin of the soul, focusing the connection of this elemental soul with its place in the unseen world and the purpose it held in the world of the living managing the forces that existed inside and outside of it.
One of the high points of a well-born Inca's life came, after a rigorous schooling in the many arts of wrestling, boxing, fighting and long-distance marching, when a teen-age novice knelt before the emperor himself to have his ears pierced by a gold dagger. When the youth rose, having uttered no cry, he was a man of class. Gradually the hole was made bid enough to bear the weight of the nobleman's huge earplugs. Some of the pendants were enormous, and before many years the young nobleman's earlobes dropped nearly to the shoulders because of the weight of gold carried on it.
When the Europeans arrived to the continent and met the Incas, they were shocked and impressed by the custom that they couldn't understand, and simply they called them "the big ears."
The Incas regarded the earplug as a thing of great beauty because it represented the value of the soul according to its 3 levels of existence.
The art of working in precious metals was highly advanced because of its meaning and connection to the unseen world. Every metal carried its very particular soul. Since the frequency of its language, according to them, dealt with the cosmological forces of the universe they had an extreme care in dealing with it, because they understood the consequences upon maltreating them. But for the european invaders, it was the lure of that precious metals that drew them to scale the Andes in 1532, kidnap the emperor and overturn his empire.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
THE NATURE OF THE INCA POWER.
The Inca religion were a pastoral kind. They believed that people had special connections with the supernatural world. The Creator God, Viracocha, was above everything and had the biggest power. He was believed to be the supreme God of creation, history, and eternity, who personally ruled the World and intervened regularly with human affairs.
The Incas distinguished themselves from the predecessors cultures by ruling their empire through a religious and administrative apparatus that respected and accepted the local customs of conquered people, rather than by might alone. That improvements in infrastructure, and religious tolerance gave them enough power to succeed as a culture and placing themselves as the head of an empire that unified a humongous amount of people from different cultures, living in the highlands, forest, and lowlands of the Andes.
The Incas strongly believed in the afterlife. It was believed that a transcedental realm existed in which an essential part or essence of an individual's identity continued to exist after the death of the physical vessel or body. The essential aspect of the individual that survived after death was the most important one because it conferred the personal identity of the individual during his life time in the world of the living.
The Incas encompassed the belief that there was no separation between the spiritual and the material world and souls existed not only in humans, but also in animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains, rivers, or other entities of the natural environment, including thunder and wind.
The Incas were able to understand the difference between the energies of persons and things, as the vital principle of the phenomena of life, and the diseases were traced to spiritual causes.
They Incas cared deeply for their dead, out of respect, loyalty, and continuity of the family lineage, whom they embalmed, mummified and placed into tombs, and looked after them. These included a sense of continuity between this life and the next and the mummification was a way to preserve the corpse of the deceased to ensure the continuity of its life. That is why tombs were treated as houses in the Hereafter and so they were carefully constructed and decorated.
After the death of the Inca, the priests class would come to his resting place and talk to the dead ruler. The supreme priest had he ability to communicate with the souls of the dead rulers through shamanic ways and believed that they possessed the ability to influence the fortune of living, and they often acted as messengers between the worlds. This type of communication was done during the time in which the soul of the death person was expecting to journey until reach his final destination.
The shamanic practice involved the practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with the frequencies of the spiritual world and channeled these transcendental energies into this world in a controlled way. They had access to, and influence in, the world of the benevolent and malevolent spirits. These entities included deities, demons, spirits, and ghosts, and were of varying importance, according to the powers they had and the position they occupied in the unseen world.
The Incas were very aware of the existence of these entities and the power that they had over the living world. To enjoy a fruitful life all the forces had to be maintained in balance in order to maintain peace in all the levels of existency.
The belief in a Hereafter in the pre-Inca cultures in the Andes goes back a long time since the first settlers appeared in the Andes and held an unique way of living. They represented the scenes of their everyday life in the textiles, ornaments, ceramics and other artifacts left in the elaborated tombs of their leaders.
The body of their leaders were treated as if they were alive given the fact that their source of power were still bound to them and there were laws applied between worlds in relation to the reception of that specific power over the hands of the leaders chosen to be invested with it.
Even to the peasant, the continuity of life in the unseen world was a major concern because they knew that everything had a role to fulfill in the world of the living and that role secured the continuity of life in an energy form in the eternal world.
The Incas distinguished themselves from the predecessors cultures by ruling their empire through a religious and administrative apparatus that respected and accepted the local customs of conquered people, rather than by might alone. That improvements in infrastructure, and religious tolerance gave them enough power to succeed as a culture and placing themselves as the head of an empire that unified a humongous amount of people from different cultures, living in the highlands, forest, and lowlands of the Andes.
The Incas strongly believed in the afterlife. It was believed that a transcedental realm existed in which an essential part or essence of an individual's identity continued to exist after the death of the physical vessel or body. The essential aspect of the individual that survived after death was the most important one because it conferred the personal identity of the individual during his life time in the world of the living.
The Incas encompassed the belief that there was no separation between the spiritual and the material world and souls existed not only in humans, but also in animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains, rivers, or other entities of the natural environment, including thunder and wind.
The Incas were able to understand the difference between the energies of persons and things, as the vital principle of the phenomena of life, and the diseases were traced to spiritual causes.
They Incas cared deeply for their dead, out of respect, loyalty, and continuity of the family lineage, whom they embalmed, mummified and placed into tombs, and looked after them. These included a sense of continuity between this life and the next and the mummification was a way to preserve the corpse of the deceased to ensure the continuity of its life. That is why tombs were treated as houses in the Hereafter and so they were carefully constructed and decorated.
After the death of the Inca, the priests class would come to his resting place and talk to the dead ruler. The supreme priest had he ability to communicate with the souls of the dead rulers through shamanic ways and believed that they possessed the ability to influence the fortune of living, and they often acted as messengers between the worlds. This type of communication was done during the time in which the soul of the death person was expecting to journey until reach his final destination.
The shamanic practice involved the practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with the frequencies of the spiritual world and channeled these transcendental energies into this world in a controlled way. They had access to, and influence in, the world of the benevolent and malevolent spirits. These entities included deities, demons, spirits, and ghosts, and were of varying importance, according to the powers they had and the position they occupied in the unseen world.
The Incas were very aware of the existence of these entities and the power that they had over the living world. To enjoy a fruitful life all the forces had to be maintained in balance in order to maintain peace in all the levels of existency.
The belief in a Hereafter in the pre-Inca cultures in the Andes goes back a long time since the first settlers appeared in the Andes and held an unique way of living. They represented the scenes of their everyday life in the textiles, ornaments, ceramics and other artifacts left in the elaborated tombs of their leaders.
The body of their leaders were treated as if they were alive given the fact that their source of power were still bound to them and there were laws applied between worlds in relation to the reception of that specific power over the hands of the leaders chosen to be invested with it.
Even to the peasant, the continuity of life in the unseen world was a major concern because they knew that everything had a role to fulfill in the world of the living and that role secured the continuity of life in an energy form in the eternal world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)