CHAVIN DE HUANTAR (1,200 BC-200 AD) - 2-

...Their prestige increased its influence without wars or conquests. The Deities demonstrate their power, are carnivorous, requiring blood sacrifices for the common good. Life is only for the worship of the Gods, there is no other purpose. And for that reason, threy are in the carved stone : The LANZON, an underground god, a rock for worship and sacrifice, mysterious cult whose leaders are priests, the Uillcas; The Estela Raimondi, where the gods are embodied converting an entire people in a great culture. Culture and Religion, great enigma as it is the largest religious center of Sud-america, equivalent to a Rome or Jerusalem in religious terms. The dictatorship of the priestly caste accomplished a great artistic development, cultural, economic and organizational.

THE OLD TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

The identification of the Old Temple is incomplete beacuse the “new temple” was built on it . In fact, it has been recognized the U-shaped of its structure and the image of a large idol carved in stone that usually know as The Lanzón in its interior and an atrium with cornices and heads carved in stone at the centre of which there is a sunken circular plaza at which some people mistakenly call "amphitheater". Regarding other buildings and facilities we have only some traces and evidence.

According to all available data so far, besides the main building, the temple has two platforms attached: one in the north near the left wing looking outwards, called North Temple or Sector D, and another to the south, longest and remote area called F. Other elements allow to conclude that the Old Temple area extends to the north end of town, in the area called Urabarrio, where there is a consistent presence of pottery that Richard Burger called “Urabarrio” after that area name. There, Marino Gonzalez found megalithic buildings and galleries of Chavin style.

The Old Temple suffered a series of amendments that varied forms of original architectural project. According to our data, the sunken circular plaza entered in the atrium is part of a platform aggregate over the first version, of which only a few vestiges have to be confirmed. This platform aggregate, with their finely carved and engraved tombstones, with its galleries of the Offerings, snails and Camp, it appears to be the last phase of the Old Temple. It added joined others in the wings, as one in the south, with galleries like the Ornamental Beams, who has two of these elements with figures recorded by legendary marine animals.

Some lost evidences, like a huge column of black rock broken into many pieces and buried, make conclude the existence of other structures now unknown. This column, nearly 1 m in diameter, presents figures recorded in the old style Chavin.

The Old Temple had a beautiful ornamentation. The sunken circular plaza had a wall in which western front, where the rising sun shines, there were two rows of tombstones engraved: the lower stones of different colors, with figures of cats and higher with a procession of characters who seem to be musicians and dancers. In this circular plaza in the centre, could have been the Obelisk Tello.


INTRODUCTION TO THE LITOSCULPTURE

The art is not properly chavinense stone sculpture, despite the fact that there are over a hundred sculptures of heads monstrous, human, animal, etc.. This is actually a management level surfaces, which are recorded images related to the cult. It is an art associated with the architecture, although some pieces are obviously independent from it, such as the main idol, although that is inside the temple, was obviously sculpted regardless of a function column, plating of the wall, beam, cornice or something similar happens with equal parts as the "Tello Obelisk."

The litoescultura or lapidaria chavinense was and is the paradigm of style called "Chavin" unfortunately there are few objects equal elsewhere, it determined that the terms of comparison with ceramics and other materials, were extremely arbitrary, so there were many confusing interpretations and was granted an extension to the style that has the largest. That helped to build scenarios as ambitious as that of Chavin to consider as the "capital" of an empire, with an area of vast domain. Even today, the so-called "Early Horizon," is confused as the expansion phase of the Chavin culture at the pan-Peruvian.

John H. Rowe (1962), managed to make a chronological segregation of litoesculturas of Chavin, using its partnership with the various phases of constructive ceremonial center and some stylistic traits derived from the sequence that he and Lawrence Dawson had built for the ceramic-Paracas Ocucaje Valley Ica.

AB, is the oldest phase, represented by the Big Picture ( "Sandeel") that is associated with the old temple. For reasons of style is associated a cornice where jaguars and snakes are some whose attributes are extended to the stage.

C, is the stage on "Tello Obelisk", although it had no direct proof Rowe made the statement when, thanks to the excavations at the Atrium of the Old Temple ", this phase has been confirmed, adding numerous tombstones engraved with characters jaguars and anthropomorphic figures similar to that of the Cornisa AB.

D, the third stage, consists of a group associated with litoesculturas "Portico of the Falcon" in the New Temple, including columns with images of anthropomorphic birds, the lintel-overhang with Falcon engraved tombstones and the atrium annex to the portico.

EF, the last phase, which is by now even lacks empirical support and is represented mainly by the "Stele Raimondi, a monument that represents the" God of báculo "divinity very popular in the southern Andes.