Rituals, Expansion, and Urban Renewal

Wari and Tiwanaku Monumental Architecture in the Central Andean Middle Horizon

Dreama (Simeng) Lin

ARTH 396 Art of the Andes

Professor Susan V. Webster
29 November 2016
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Unlike polis of Greece, prehispanic Andean cities expressed the interpenetrating state

religions and elite politics, rather than the venues of a flourishing merchant class.1 Little

economic incentive and virtually no opportunity existed for rural dwellers to migrate to the

Andean capitals.2 The fundamental work of Andean states was rural instead of urban.3 The

monumental architecture in both heartland and hinterland of two Middle Horizontal polities,

Tiwanaku and Wari, reflected the different expansion strategies used by elites to incorporate the

local worship into the state ideology (Fig 1).

For the provincial centers, the author focuses on the Moquegua Valley, the only place

where Wari (Cerro Baúl) and Tiwanaku (Omo) frontiers coexisted during the Middle Horizon

(Fig 2).4 Whereas in Cerro Baúl, the Wari usurped the local huacas and imposed, nearly

atopographically, cellular orthogonal grids, in Omo M10, the Tiwanaku carved the megalith into

a huaca within a sunken court. Both political-ritual spaces bounded the humans with the

ancestral and animated landscape, legitimating the elite authority.

Two polities’ expansion concurred with their urban renewal. While in Ayacucho, the

Wari erected high walls and patio groups, in the Lake Titicaca Basin, the Tiwanaku built sunken

temples and terraced platforms with fine cut stonework.5 Different forms and masonry derived

from two contrasting social organizations. Whereas the Wari integrated sacred local sites into a

geographic “mosaic” of elite network, the Tiwanaku did not interact with the local and held

1
Alan Kolata, "Of Kings and Capitals: Principles of Authority and the Nature of Cities in the
Native Andean State," in The Archaeology of City States: Cross-Cultural Approaches, ed. D.L.
Nichols and T.H. Charlton (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), 253-4.
2 Ibid. Also, one should avoid using urban-rural dichotomy on prehispanic Andean states.
3 Ibid.
4
William Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities in the Central Andean Middle
Horizon,” in Handbook of South American Archaeology, ed. Helaine Silverman and William H.
Isbell (New York: Springer, 2008), 739.
5 The author would use Huari and Tiahuanaco when mentioning the capitals, Wari and

Tiwanaku when mentioning the states.

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cyclic feasts in the capital to attract “resource-bearing pilgrims.”6 In terms of political system,

Tiwanaku lacked the hierarchical bureaucracy that defined Wari.

Cerro Baúl and Omo M10, Wari and Tiwanaku in the Moquegua Valley

Although Cerro Baúl occupied by Wari, and Omo by Tiwanaku were less than 10

kilometers apart in Moquegua, little archeological evidence indicates trade, co-residence,

intermarriage, or other interaction between two colonies (Fig 2).7 Also, little or no evidence

suggested warfare between the colonists and the locals.8

According to the household archaeology, while Wari colonists, usually in small amount,

married with indigenous women and adopted local artistic traditions, the Tiwanaku settled in

family and stayed loyal to the heartland iconography.9 Cerro Baúl and Omo M10 Temples,

which choreographed two divergent ritual processions, mirrored the colonization patterns of

Wari and Tiwanaku.10

The local huacas and imposed grids in Cerro Baúl

The Wari site in Cerro Baúl both adapted to and controlled the local landscape. Whereas

the ritual space incorporated the local huacas, a rigid orthogonal cellular plan was imposed with

hardly any consideration of topography. Wari elites accommodated the indigenous veneration to

6 Mary Glowacki and Michael Malpass, "Water, Huacas, and Ancestor Worship: Traces of a
Sacred Wari Landscape," Latin American Antiquity 14, no. 4 (2003): 443. Kolata, “Of Kings and
Capitals.”
7
Paul. S Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion: Demographic and Outpost
Colonization Compared,” in Visions of Tiwanaku, ed. Alexei Vranich and Charles Stani (Los
Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2013), 55.
8
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 739. The possibility cannot be ruled out
though.
9
Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 56.
10
Ibid., 41.
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“warify” the local.11 Thus, the political-ritual architecture in Cerro Baúl generated a new Wari

international identity that carried both heartland and hinterland ideologies.12

In Cerro Baúl, a sheer-sided mesa that towers about 600 meters above its base, the Wari

visually connected the local huacas towards the distant snowcapped apus (Fig 3).13 The GIS14-

based viewshed analysis, conducted by Williams and Nash, confirmed the use of this strategy in

the Picchu Picchu Temple and Arundane Temple. The GIS-based viewshed analysis of Cerro

Baúl discovers three most visible mountain peaks from the mesa, Picchu Picchu, Hauilau and

Arundane/Colne (Fig 4-9).15 Two architectural complexes, Sector D and Sector E, had clear

alignments with Picchu Picchu and Arundane.16

The central axis of Sector E, the Picchu Picchu Temple, led towards the peak of Picchu

Picchu and beyond to the Wari heartland (Fig 6, 7).17 Starting from the south, the Middle-

Horizontal visitor descended by the first staircase from a terraced hillside, walked across the

sunken court, and ascended by the second staircase (Fig 7) towards a 16-by-20-meter two-tiered

11
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities”, 739.
12
Rebecca Stone-Miller and Gordon F. McEwan, "The Representation of the Wari State in Stone
and Thread: A Comparison of Architecture and Tapestry Tunics," RES: Anthropology and
Aesthetics, no. 19/20 (1990), 61. Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities”, 739.
13
Michael E. Moseley, Robert A. Feldman, Paul S. Goldstein, and Luis Watanabe, “Colonies
and Conquest: Tiahuanaco and Huari in Moquegua,” in Huari Administrative Structure:
Prehistoric Monumental Architecture and State Government, ed. William H. Isbell and Gordon
F. McEwan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1991), 131. Patrick Ryan Williams and Donna
J. Nash, "Sighting the Apu: A GIS Analysis of Wari Imperialism and the Worship of Mountain
Peaks," World Archaeology 38, no. 3 (2006): 466.
14
Geographic Information System.
15
Williams and Nash, “Sighting the Apu,” 464.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
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platform.18 Also, the ritual procession might mirror the traffic of goods and people from the

Moquegua valley, across the peaks of Picchu Picchu, to the Wari heartland in Ayacucho. 19

Sector D, the Arundane Temple, enveloped the largest andesite boulder protruding out of

the sandstone matrix of Cerro Baúl (Fig 6, 8, 9). The boulder should be a local huaca due to its

central location, prominent size, and distinctive form.20 A staircase descends from the western

platform to the plaza that encircled the boulder.21 The temple’s east-western axis was oriented

towards the distant Arudane volcano and beyond to Tiwanaku (Fig 9).22 Two small rooms on the

west side of the platform probably stocked the offerings to the boulder, a surrogate for the peak

of Arudane (Fig 8).23

Remarkably, the Wari constructed two temples in imitation of Tiwanaku aesthetics. They

even oriented the Arundane temple towards the Tiwanaku heartland. Archeological data

confirms the different forms of ritual practice, Wari, Tiwanaku, and local, in these two temples.24

The Wari elites integrated both the Tiwanaku and local cult within the Wari walls.25 The ritual

space linked, spatially and spiritually, Cerro Baúl, which was an apu itself, to the distant apus of

Arudane and Picchu Picchu. Therefore, the elites enshrined themselves as the intermediaries

between different local communities and the mountain deities they worshipped.26

18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid., 465.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
24 Patrick Ryan Williams and Donna J. Nash, “Religious Ritual and Wari State Expansion,” in

Ritual and Archaic States, ed. Murphy, Joanne M. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
2016), 142-150.
25 Ibid., 151.
26 Ibid., 150.
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The Andean peoples continue to practice the apu worship nowadays. Don Juan Lopez

Ventura, a shaman who has long been performing the pago, payment to the apu, indicates that

Cerro Baúl is an important apu that links other chains of apu in Titicaca Basin (Fig 10).27

Lopez’s accounts affirm that the religion both motivated and justified the Wari expansion.

Pikillacta, another Wari provincial center, also displayed flexibility of Wari construction

(Fig 11-14). The construction of Pikillacta comprised a single, unitary, regular overall plan filled

with varied, sometimes irregular, individual areas (Fig 11-13).28 Limited freedom and deviations

occurred in the state-mandated plan.29 However, despite the nearly atopographical position,

Sector 4 might circumscribed a local huaca.30

Also, three missing units at the northeast counterbalanced the extra southwest wall (Fig

11).31 The structures used various arrangements of three basic elements (Fig 13). 32 The modular

units allowed the local unskilled labors to adjust the model and complete the construction in

short time.

Replica of the capital architecture and carved huaca in Omo M10

Unlike their Wari counterparts, Tiwanaku provincial centers remained faithful to

heartland. Neither “Tiwanakunized” local nor hybrid identities were created.33 The sunken

temples in imitation of the capital architecture appeared in Tiwanaku colonies in IV and V

27
Ibid., 460.
28
Stone-Miller and McEwan, "The Representation of the Wari State in Stone and Thread.” 60.
29
Ibid., 61.
30 Goldon F. McEwan, “Excavations at Pikillacta,” in Pikillacta : The Wari Empire in Cuzco,

ed. Gordon F. McEwan (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005), 57.
31
Ibid., 60.
32
Ibid.
33
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 739.
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phases (Fig 20).34 These replicas crystalized the elite power by hierarchizing the space,

controlling the ritual progressions, and consecrating the architecture itself as a huaca.35 Omo

M10 Temple in Moquegua Valley attested this expansion strategy.

Omo M10 Temple comprised artificial terraced mounds, walled precincts, sunken courts,

and a complex of staircases and doorways that channeled access to a ceremonial core (Fig 15-

19).36 These architectural elements derived from the Akapana in the Tiwanaku heartland, a man-

made hill built on stone foundations with a sunken court on the top (Fig 33, 35). Built on a

sloped terrain, the M10 complex consisted of three adobe-walled courts, designated as the

Lower, Middle, and Upper Courts, and a cemetery next to the Lower Court (Fig 15, 16).37

The higher the platform, the more elaborate and intricate the construction was. While the

42-by-57-meter Lower Court had neither internal division nor decorated floor surfaces, the 20-

by-37-meter Middle Court, with a floor of moro moro, smoothed red clay, contained a striking

façade of finely dressed stones.38 The Upper court was most imposing and convoluted in terms of

architecture (Fig 18).39 This 34-by-36-meter leveled platform contained a sunken walled area in

the center with surrounding rectangular rooms. All the interior walls used a single course of

refined ashlar blocks, smoothed by abrasion and closely fitted to its neighbors (Fig 17).40 The

34
Paul Goldstein, "Tiwanaku Temples and State Expansion: A Tiwanaku Sunken-Court Temple
in Moquegua, Peru," Latin American Antiquity 4, no. 1 (1993): 26.
35
Ibid., 42.
36
Ibid., 24
37
Ibid., 32.
38
Ibid., 33.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid., 34.
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distinct masonry resembled the technique used in Kalasasaya (Fig 40).41 During its occupation

the Upper Court also required expansive reconstruction and fastidious cleaning, which again

stressed its superiority over other two courts.42

Likewise, the gateways of Omo M10 Temple channeled and controlled the traffic (Fig

18). A single doorway, less than one meter in width at the top of a central staircase from the

Middle Court, was the only access to the Upper Court.43 Behind the gateway, another axial

gateway led towards a 16-by-15-meter walled sanctum that contained a 10.5-square-meter and

half-meter-deep sunken court.44 Originally there was a monolith sculpture.45 Presumably, the

sculpture depicted the Staff Deity, the central cult of Tiwanaku. The ritual progression through

the restricted staircases and filtered doorways must have intrinsically mystified the Upper Court,

transforming the carved monolith into a huaca that personified the priestly elites.46 The

architectural design deliberately blurred the boundary between the ruler class and the sacred

deity. While Wari elites were the intermediaries between the spiritual entities and the humans,

Tiwanaku rulers almost equaled the supernatural beings.

Furthermore, Tiwanaku colonists solidified their privilege by sculpting Omo M10

Temple into an artifact for veneration. Marqueta, a 15-by-13-centimeter carved volcanic stone

founded in the Omo site, depicted the structure of M10 Temple (Fig 19).47 Architectural models

usually have two functions, to direct the construction, and to represent, or embody, the

41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 32&35.
43
Ibid., 37.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., 42.
47
Ibid., 38-9.
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architectural design. For the first function, the architects would have chosen more malleable

materials to show topography. Ethnographic evidences also confirm the second function.

Nowadays, during the feasts, the Ayamara, indigenous people in Altipano regions, still use

miniatures of houses and farms to invoke prosperity.48 Therefore, the veneration of the marqueta

transformed Omo M10 Temple from a building to a huaca, inherently embedded in the

Moquegua Valley. Accordingly, Tiwanaku elites, who resided in the temple, became the

legitimate rulers rather than outside migrates.49

Remarkably, Tiwanaku forms of utilitarian and decoration are found in the Omo site,

whereas the local styles are absent.50 The colonists lived in insularity and maintained the identity

of Altipano.51 Accordingly, the provincial architecture simulated the heartland ritual center with

no adaption to the local community.

The Wari-Tiwanaku Relationship in the Moquegua Valley

As mentioned before, the Wari temples in Cerro Baúl imitated the Tiwanaku sunken

courts and accommodated the local cult influenced by Tiwanaku rites. Remarkably, the Omo

Upper Court afforded a view of the summit of distant Cerro Baúl.52 The Cerro Baúl, the only

point within the Moquegua Valley visible by all the surrounding mountain peaks, tied various

48
Ibid., 40.
49
Since an elite residential precinct was found atop the Akapana, it is very likely that elites also
resided in the Omo temple. Goldstien, 40.
50
Goldstein, "Tiwanaku Temples and State Expansion," 45.
51
Ibid., 46.
52
Ibid., 38.
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local communities to a regional entity.53 The worship of the same sacred mountain by both

Tiwanaku and Wari colonies in the valley indicated that both states used apu veneration to

mediate social relations.54

Capitals in Expansion, Wari and Tiwanaku

Although both Wari and Tiwanku used religion as a political propaganda during their

expansion in the Moquegua Valley, the architecture of Cerro Baúl and Omo Temple reflected

two different migration patterns. Whereas Cerro Baúl usurped the local huacas, Omo M10

Temple replicated the heartland architecture. While the small-amount Wari colonists created

network including the local elites, the Tiwanaku settled down in family and lived in insularity.55

Accordingly, the Wari and Tiwanaku heartland architecture suggested contrasting

divergent ritual-political systems. During the Middle Horizon, concurrent with the state

expansion, two capitals underwent a dramatic urban renewal.56 Two cities had similar size of

populations, with Wari probably a bit larger at its apogee.57

While Wari’s congested plans, narrow streets, and high walls rejected the visitors without

the guide or previous knowledge, the prescribed routes in Tiwanaku Compounds channeled the

heavy traffic to the final open sanctum.58 Contrasting natures of feasts held in two ritual-political

spaces decided their forms and choreography of processions. Whereas diacritical feasts in Wari

53 Patrick Ryan Williams and Donna J. Nash, “Religious Ritual and Wari State Expansion,” in
Ritual and Archaic States, ed. Joanne M. Murphy (Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
2016) 136.
54 Ibid.
55
Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 52. Few archeological data show Wari
settlement in Moquegua.
56
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 747.
57
Ibid., 748&751. Tiwanaku heartland probably housed 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants, whereas
Wari city core contained 20,000 to 40,000.
58
Ibid., 752.
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reified “ranked difference” and built elite network, the patron-client feasts in Tiwanaku

strengthened the reciprocal ties between the resource-carried pilgrims and the state.59

Wari in Ayacucho

Wari, located in the canyon that separates the Huamanga and Huanta basisns, comprised

five sections (Fig 21-24).60 The third section from the east, a great igneous outcrop, is almost a

mesa, the same landscape of Cerro Baúl, Wari’s southern frontier.61 Lack of water in the

Ayacucho Valley required collective irrigation, and encouraged the growth of multi-community

authority.62 The southern and northern halves of the city oriented their buildings to different

directions (Fig 21-22).63

The urban core developed opportunistically without a plan that preceded the origin of the

city.64 The Wari buildings were constantly “becoming” rather than keep a single form.65 The

rapid development during the Middle Horizon consisted of two overlapping periods, the Patio

Group Construction Phase and the Great Walls Construction Phase.66

59 Justin Jennings, "Understanding Middle Horizon Peru: Hermeneutic Spirals, Interpretative

Traditions, and Wari Administrative Centers," Latin American Antiquity 17, no. 3 (2006): 275-8.
Archeologists often divide state sponsored feasts into two types: patron-client feasts,
where patron hospitality is used to “legitimize institutionalized relations of social power”,
and diacritical feasts, where different foods and styles of consumption are used to “reify
concepts of ranked differences” in the social order.
60
William Harris Isbell, Christine Brewster-Wray, and Lynda E. Spickard, “Architecture and
Spatial Organization at Huari,” in Huari Administrative Structure: Prehistoric Monumental
Architecture and State Government, ed. William H. Isbell and Gordon F. McEwan (Washington,
DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1991), 20. The author does not include Conchopata in discussion because
its relationship with Wari remained unclear.
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid., 24
64
Ibid., 49
65
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 751.
66
Isbell, Brewster-Wray, and Spickard, “Architecture and Spatial Organization at Huari,” 51.
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At the beginning, the Wari constructed haphazardly organized room groups of short

unbounded wall segments.67 Several circular temples, constructed with well-dressed stones,

turned the residential area to a ceremonial center (Fig 28).68 The masonry of these circular

temples resembled the Tiwanaku stonework.69 The Wari built these temples when they intruded

Cerro Baúl, located next to Tiwanaku colonies. The hinterland construction affected, in return,

the heartland architecture.

During the Patio Group Construction Phase, the Wari erected cellular orthogonal units

with 50 to 60-centimeter-thick bounded walls, such as in the Moraduchayuq Compound (Fig 25-

27).70 Again, the colonial experience influenced the patio group construction in heartland.71

Pikillacta that predated the Moraduchyuq Compound used the same cellular orthogonal plan (Fig

11, 12, 25, 26).

The Great Walls Construction Phase happened at the end of Middle Horizon. Huge walls,

often one meter thick, were erected.72 The construction appeared to be never finished.73

During the Wari urban renewal, the walls became thicker and higher, and the plans more

complex and rigid. These changes implied Wari’s growing concern over the defensibility. The

Wari might have chosen the mountaintop sites of Cerro Baúl that include supporting enclaves

67
Ibid., 37.
68
Ibid., 28&45.
69
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 753.
70
Isbell, Brewster-Wray, and Spickard, “Architecture and Spatial Organization at Huari,” 37-8.
71
Ibid., 50.
72
Ibid., 49.
73
Ibid.
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due to the same concern.74 Arguably, Wari frontier outposts that felt insecure in a distant land

brought back their insecurity to the capital construction.75 Also, the labyrinth patterns and small-

size rooms denied possibilities to hold massive feasts. Instead, Wari political-ritual architecture

welcomed only the high-ranked elites. The hierarchical state expanded under a central command

and a “mosaic” network.76

Remarkably, the Wari built home in stone everywhere, while the Tiwanaku preferred

adobe for the domestic architecture, despite their fine cut stonework for the monumental

architecture.77 Thus, the homes of Wari colonists might be viewed as intimidating “embassies”

where elites resided and governed, whereas the Tiwanaku who immigrated in large amount were

not necessarily elites.78

Tiwanaku in the Lake Titicaca Basin

The Tiwanaku heartland, 20 kilometers from the shore of Lake Titicaca, provides views

of the snowcapped Illimani Mountain and the sacred lake (Fig 19).79 According to the Ayamara

worldview, the valley is a taypi, a central point where two halves converge, Urcosuyu of the dry

western hilltops, and Umasuyu of the eastern lacustrine zones (Fig 20).80

At the end of the Late Formative II, spatial and material transformation of the capital

monumental architecture defined a collective memory that produced a unique Altipano identity.

74 Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 58.

75 Ibid.
76 Jennings, "Understanding Middle Horizon Peru," 278.
77 Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 58.
78 Ibid.
79
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 746.
80
Alan L. Kolata, “The Myth of Tiwanaku,” in The Tiwanaku : Portrait of an Andean
Civilization (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993), 8.
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The political-ritual centers and the temporary residential areas nearby accommodated pilgrims of

cyclic feasts.

Before 500 CE, only the small sunken court and the older Kalasasaya platform existed

(Fig 33). During the Middle Horizon, the Tiwanaku enlarged the Kalasasaya Platform and

established Akapana, Pumapunku, and several other monumental constructions (Fig 32-5).81 The

monuments incorporated the sacred landscape and set up a mystique atmosphere.

On the new west “balcony wall” 82 of Kalasasaya, a Middle Horizon viewer witnessed the

sun set over the southernmost pilaster during the austral summer (December) solstice, and over

the northernmost pilaster during the austral winter (June) solstice (Fig 36).83 During the equinox

the sun blazed through the central Sun Portal (Fig 37).

Facing south in the Sunken Temple, a Middle Horizon pilgrim saw Akapana, whose

terraced forms simulated the natural mountains.84 In both Akapana and Pumapunku, a primary

west staircase guided the pilgrims to the summit that offered an impressive view of Mount

Illimani.

81
John W. Janusek, “Tiwanaku Urban Origins: Distributed Centers and Animate Landscapes,” in
The Cambridge World History, ed. Norman Yoffee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2015), 242.
82
Ibid. The west wall served as a celestial observatory.
83
John W. Janusek and Patrick Ryan Williams, “Telluric Techné and the Lithic Production of
Tiwanaku,” in Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in the Pre-Columbian World, ed. Cathy
Lynne Costin (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2016), 112.
84
Janusek, “Tiwanaku Urban Origins,” 244. Janusek and Willamas, “Telluric Techné,” 98. The
original view before the Akapana construction was the peak of Mountain Kimsachata, the nearest
peak in the Corocoro range.
 15

Northern and southern halves of the city indicated two origins of the Tiwanaku. While

the Khonkho created Pumapunku, the Tiwanaku the north sphere (Fig 32).85 Akapna (North) and

Pumapunku (South) formed dual ceremonial spaces to integrate the paired Late Formative

centers into a new Middle Horizon Tiwanaku authority.86

Also, during the Middle Horizon, Tiwanaku monumental construction’s material shifted

from reddish sandstones (Fig 40) to blue-grey volcanic stones (Fig 38-42).87 Well-engineered

totora-reed boats carried the volcanic andesite from Ccapia and Copacabana, across the southern

portion of Lake Titicaca, to the port of Iwawe (Fig 31, 38).88 The stones roughly carved near

Iwawe were then hauled and dragged overland to Tiwanaku that is 11 kilometers away.89 In

Kalasasaya huge andesite megaliths were integrated into sandstones (Fig 39, 40).90 By using the

stones quarried from the apus, the Tiwanaku monuments embodied the ancestral power.

Whereas the red sandstone from the nearby Kimsachata quarries evoked blood that

affords life for llamas and humans, the bluish-gray andesite recalled the water force of Lake

Titicaca near the volcanic mountains.91 The new aesthetic of the bluish-gray color concurred

with the Tiwanaku expansion to usurp the water source for raised field farming.92

85
Ibid., 250. Khonkho and Tiwanaku were two rivalry communities in the Late Formative. Later
they merged into the Middle Horizon Tiwanaku.
86
Ibid.
87
Janusek and Willamas, “Telluric Techné,” 96
88
Ibid., 105-6.
89
Ibid., 106.
90
Ibid., 111. The andesite in the west wall came from Ccapia, while the east wall Copacabana.
91
Janusek, “Tiwanaku Urban Origins,” 245.
92
Ibid., 246.
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However, except for a few elite residencies on the top of Akapana, other Tiwanaku

domestic architecture was built by adobe, contrasting the fine cut stonework of monuments.93

Tiwanaku masonry, therefore, carried the symbolic meaning to represent the state ideology. The

Tiwanaku colonists kept their pure heartland identity and viewed the ancestral home as a place of

eventual return.94 This sense of loyalty might explain why local styles were absent in the

Moquegua Tiwanaku sites.95

Discussion

The Middle Horizon is a threshold in the Andean history. Centuries of isolation suddenly

ended and separated communities merged and expanded.96 The cities of Wari and Tiwanaku

were both product and process of these expansions. The urban and provincial political-ritual

architectural forms, materials, and techniques reflected divergent expansion strategies of two

states.

The Wari erected high walls and rigid grids, and usurped the indigenous huacas, in order

to keep the mass out, connect the elites, and integrate the local worship into the state pantheon.

On the other side, the Tiwanaku built large sunken courts on the open plateau, controlled the

doorways, and replicated the capital monuments in hinterland, in order to attract the “resource-

bearing” pilgrims and establish a unique Tiwanaku identity.97 Accordingly, whereas Tiwanaku

feasts welcomed the “people,” Wari feasts were reserved for elites.

93
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 738.
94 Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 45.
95 Ibid.
96
Ibid.
97 Kolata, “Of Kings and Capitals.”
 17

Two ritual types mirrored two social organizations. In Tiwanaku, the unity among diverse

peasant localities was actualized in ritual linkages between kings and chiefs.98 Tiwanaku kings’

power came from ritual suzerainty rather than political sovereignty.99 In Wari, the state, divided

by the class, expanded under central command.100 The highest Tiwanaku authority was defined

by its religious privilege, while Wari kings wielded also the political and economical power.101

Different ritual-politcal organizations generated divergent expansion strategies, reflected

in two polities’ provincial architectural design. While Wari “tense frontier outposts,” usually

elites, moved to the distant land in a small amount, Tiwanaku “diasporas” migrated to a

relatively nearby place and settled down in family.102 No Tiwanaku colonies are located more

than 50 to 75 kilometers from its heartland.103 While Wari “outposts” might feel unsecure but

relatively free to adapt to local culture on a distant land, Tiwanaku “diasporas” remained loyal to

Altipano identity without interest to interact with the local.104 The Altipano pride and close

relationship between “diasporas” might prevent Tiwanaku colonists from deviating from the

heartland style and appreciating other cultures.105

98
Ibid.
99
Ibid., 42.
100 Ibid., 43.
101 Ibid.
102
Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 58.
103
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 740.
104
Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 58.
105
Goldstein, “Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion,” 45. The state expanded by permanent
immigration and the expatriate communities viewed the ancestral homeland as the final
destination of return. Demographic profiles suggest return migration or repatriation of the
deceased to the Altipano.
 18

However, despite all the differences, both Wari and Tiwanaku monumental architecture

deliberately choreographed the processions to construct and recontextulize social relationships.

These rituals, especially the veneration of apu, viewed in Andean cultures as ancestral beings

with power over life and death, bounded the built-environment with the animated landscapes.

Tiwanaku and Wari elites, who successfully conducted these rituals, therefore, portrayed

themselves as intermediaries between the human and supernatural beings, or almost deities in

some Tiwanaku cases. In Andean mythology, the spiritual beings decided the amount of

irrigation waters, the key element for agricultural harvests. In both Wari and Tiwanaku

monumental architecture, therefore, “ritual enacts power through the production of appropriate

social personae.”106

Further Investigations

“Not a single standing original building” was left in the Tiwanaku heartland.107 Modern

reconstruction of Kalasasaya by Poce Sanginés is “objectionable” and “distorted view of the

tectonics of Tiwanaku architecture,” only based on faint outlines, cores, and veneers.108 In this

paper, the author tried to used the photos showing as much the original construction as possible.

Still, the author could never look at Tiwanaku and Wari ritual spaces from the Middle-Horizon

perspective. Neither did she experience the original atmosphere nor did she grow up under the

Andean worldview. All the discussions were her interpretation.

Also, more archeological data, especially for the relationship between Tiwanaku and

Wari in the Moquegua Valley, and the domestic architecture was needed for a more

106 Williams and Nash, “Religious Ritual and Wari State Expansion,” 22.
107 Jean-Pierre Protzen and Stella E. Nair, "On Reconstructing Tiwanaku Architecture," Journal
of the Society of Architectural Historians 59, no. 3 (2000): 358.
108
Ibid., 358-61.
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comprehensive understanding of two polities. Scholars point out that two states’ peaceful (?)

sharing of the Moquegua Valley is curious.109

At the end, the comparison of Tiwanaku and Wari monumental architecture is relevant to

our current society. The Andean social relationship reflected by its political-ritual space inspires

us to reflect on if the industrial production, urban-rural dichotomy, “Reason,” or even democracy

are the only ways to construct our societies and connect to our landscape.

109
Isbell, “Wari and Tiwanaku: International Identities,” 740. Although little or no evidence of
the warfare between Tiwanaku and Wari existed, the possibility could not be ruled out.