Early Horizon

1
Early Horizon

• Chronology
• some interpret style as going back to 1800 BC
• principal occupation from 800-200 BC
• Sites in the Highlands
• Chavín de Huantar
• Kuntur Wasi
• Sites on the Coast
• Moxeke
• Garagay

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Julio C. Tello
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Garagay - Initial Period Sculpture
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Early Horizon - North Coast

• friezes covering shrine at Cerro Blanco
• painted adobe columns in Chicama Valley
• Garagay and Moxeke
• motifs in painted clay
• portable objects with Chavín iconography
• engraved bone tubes, bone and metal spatulas,
  small spoons

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Cupisnique

• Chronology
• 1500-400 BC
• precedes classic highland Chavín culture by over
  600 years
• Sites
• Caballo Muerto

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Caballo Muerto

• Location
• Moche Valley
• 240 km NW of Chavín de Huantar
• Features
• covers 2 km NS x 1 km EW
• at least 8 major temple mounds
• probably 2-3 in use at once

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Caballo Muerto - Chronology

• three major periods for construction
• Period I 1500-1200 BC
• Period II 1200-800 BC
• Period III 800-400 BC
• Phases I-II most impressive constructions
• each mound is in the shape of a U
• continuity from Initial Period
• Phase III less impressive
• Chavín de Huantar related ceramics

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Caballo Muerto - Sculpture
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Punkuri - Initial Period Sculpture
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Moxeke - Temple Sculpture
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Huaca de los Reyes

• 2 symmetrical platform mounds
• series of 58 adobe friezes on faces
• large adobe heads human and feline
  characteristics
• bipedal figure presumably human
• labor costs
• 100 men full-time for 11.43 years to build second
  construction phase

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Huaca de los Reyes
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Huaca de los Reyes - Sculpture
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Chongoyape - Goldwork
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Chavín de Huantar - Location

• altitude of 3100 m
• surrounding peaks typically exceed 5500 m and
  are glaciated
• situated in tributary to Río Marañon, which flows
  to the Amazon
• Pukcha drainage system, composed of Mosna and
  Huari rivers
• immediately east of Callejón de Huaylas

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Chavín de Huantar - History

• large temple found there by Spanish
  conquistadores
• research pioneered by Julio Tello in 1919
• traced roots of civilization to the eastern
  slopes
• recent research by Richard Burger

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Chavín de Huantar - Environment

• average rainfall of 856 mm
• well suited for farming without irrigation
• area known for reliable harvests
• vertical archipelago
• wide separation between montaña, yunga, and
  temple
• upper reaches of the tropical forest are more
  distant
• maximum population of ca. 3000 people

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Chavín de Huantar - Architecture

• in use for about 5 centuries
• temple consists of a number of rectangular
  structures
• 10 m high pyramid
• temple area terraced to create about 5 ha of
  level land
• Old Temple
• New Temple

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Chavín de Huantar - Old Temple

• honeycomb of stone passages
• rooms roofed with large slabs of stone connected
  by ventilating ducts
• outside walls decorated with tenoned human and
  animal heads fitted into sockets in the masonry
• oriented to the cardinal direction, facing east
• central gallery built around sculpted megalith,
  4.5 m (14' 10") high
• U-shaped sunken plaza is reminiscent of those
  from coast

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Chavín de Huantar -New Temple

• Black White Portal
• south half of white granite
• north half of black limestone
• two cylindrical columns each carved with single
  large figure in flat relief short cornice with
  frieze of standing bird
• supported the lintel of the entrance
• all pieces cut for the positions they occupy
• image of the deity of the south wing has not been
  found
• probably destroyed centuries ago

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New Temple - B W Portal
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Chavín de Huantar - Temple Chronology

• old temple constructed first
• north and south wings forming U-shape
• additions to the wings on north and south
• second and third additions to the south
• include the Black White Portal

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Chavín Art

• bilateral symmetry with reference to vertical
  axis
• repetition of details or whole figures in rows
• modular width
• common to a number of art styles in Peru
• series of bands of approximately equal width
• non-linear features accomodated to the modular
  framework
• may be related to early textile production
• representation of anatomical features as
  geometric figures
• eyes represented by circles, ovals, lenses, or
  rectangles
• use of "kennings

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John Rowes Kennings

• visual comparisons suggested by substitution
• term comes from Old Norse poetry
• coined by 13th century scholar
• poetry itself referred to as "Odin's mead"
• simile - "her hair is like a nest of snakes"
• metaphor - "her hair is a nest of snakes"
• kenning substituion - "her nest of snakes"
• examples in Chavin art
• projecting appendage from the body becomes a
  tongue
• smaller body appendages are snakes used to
  indicate hair or feathers

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Chavín Art - Common Motifs

• mouth of almost any creature is snarling mouth of
  a cat
• teeth bared and long canines overlapping the lips
• used for humans, snakes, and even birds
• may be used to indicate divinity
• can be viewed in different ways
• reversible organization (can be turned 90 or 270
  degrees)

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Chavín Artistic Conventions
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Chavín - Artistic Conventions
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Chavín - Artistic Conventions
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Chavín - Lanzón or Great Image

• human form with figurative elaboration
• standing, with left arm at his side and right arm
  raised
• hands are open and hold nothing
• ear pendants, necklace, tunic, and girdle
• hair is snakes and girdle is a chain of faces
• large mouth is upturned, with upper canines only
• teeth and lower lip may have been added later
  lower lip is out of line with upper one

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Chavín - Tello Obelisk

• discovered near SW corner of sunken court in 1908
• two mythological cayman figures
• Great Cayman of the Sky marked by harpy eagle
• Great Cayman of the Water and Underworld
• marked by Spondylus and Strombus
• indicated with a penis
• represent and female
• associated with symbols of agriculture
• representative of shamanism

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Chavín - Smiling God

• discovered in December of 1956
• holds Spondylus and Strombus shells
• Cordy-Collins suggests two shells have sexual
  meaning bivalve (female) on left gastropod (male)
  on right
• Kogi of Colombia believe in this difference
  between shells
• may be an androgynous deity fertility gods are
  often unambiguously one or the other

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Chavín - Stela de Yauya

• design not only on flat side of stone but on both
  edges
• only half has been preserved
• two caymans, represented face to face

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Yauya Stela
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Chavín - Black White Portals

• each column ornamented with one figure
• positioned as supernatural attendants
• figures are standing, each with a sword/club
  across its body
• bird attributes of south column are those of an
  eagle

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New Temple - B W Portal
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Black Portal Relief
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White Portal Relief
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Chavín - Raimondi Stone

• found in 1840
• reportedly stood on the west terrace near the
  sunken plaza
• brought to Lima by geographer Antonio Raimondi in
  1874
• 6'5" long and 2'5" wide
• meant to be set vertically, probably in a wall
  alternatively, it could have been mounted
  overhead
• Staff God interpreted by Rowe as more important
  than Smiling God

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Chavín - Raimondi Stela
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Chavín Outside Chavín de Huantar

• Characteristics
• stone sculpture rare away from Chavín de Huantar
• Cerro Sechn is a major exception
• no Chavín influence found in Apurimac or Cuzco
  areas

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Early Horizon - Northern Highlands

• Kuntur Wasi
• modelled head reminiscent of tenoned head
• low relief of double-profile face
• carved stelae
• Pacopampa
• two standing jaguars
• statue of Staff Goddess
• Zaña Valley
• 17 paintings on cliffs of Monte Calavario
• one depicts Staff God in yellow, white, green,
  and brown
• felines, birds, and another anthropomorphic figure

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Early Horizon - Karwa

• located on south coast
• cemetery is 8 km south of Paracas Necropolis
• location noted by Tello
• huaqueros located a large, rectangular tomb in
  1970
• reportedly contained the remains of several
  individuals
• over 200 fragments of decorated cloth

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Karwa Textiles

• may have been used as mummy wrappings
• may have been hangings decorating Chavín shrine
  at Ica
• coastal adaptation of highland style
• female representations of Staff Deity
• sometimes shown with cotton bolls emerging from
  headdress and staffs
• wife or daughter of Raimondi Stone Staff God
• may be patron and/or donor of cotton
• rayed circle motif identified as cut section of
  hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus
• Note cotton and cactus are absent on the Tello
  Obelisk

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Early Horizon - Textiles

• use of camelid hair in cotton textiles
• textile painting
• supplemental discontinuous warps (incl. kinds of
  tapestry)
• dying of camelid hair
• warp wrapping
• negative or resist painting techniques

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Early Horizon - Metals

• Chongoyape find
• large objects of hammered gold
• repoussé decoration
• soldering
• alloying of silver and gold

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Chavín Stylistic Chronology

• A/B- Great Image
• C - Tello Obelisk
• D - Black White Portal sculptures
• E/F - Raimondi Stela

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Chavín Absolute Chronology

• Urabarriu Phase (850-460 BC)
• Chankinani Phase (460-390 BC)
• Jainbarriu Phase (390-200 BC)

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Urabarriu Phase (850-460 BC)

• earliest encountered at Chavín de Huantar
• large-scale construction at site
• construction of monumental wall
• canalization of river
• construction of bridge connecting upper and lower
  barrios
• temple established ca. 800 BC

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Chankinani Phase (460-390 BC)

• concentration of occupation around temple

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Jainbarriu Phase (390-200 BC)

• settlement covered 42 ha
• corresponds to most active period of temple
  activity
• also correspond to Ocucaje 1 in Ica Valley
• ceramics
• broad incisions in leather-hard paste
• rocker-stamping, dentate rocker-stamping,
  appliqu nubbins
• graphite paint within broad incisions on
  red-slipped vessels
• traits found from Pacopama to Ica
• zoned polychrome resin painting

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Interpreting Chavín

• Berger suggests "crisis cult"connected to El Niño
  events
• system of social classes had been in place by end
  of Intitial Period
• radical change might call for new ideology
• other factors
• changes in intensity of trade
• possibility of military conquest