Chavin de Huantar. Northern highlands, Peru. Chavin 900- 200BCE Stone (architecture) Granite (Lanzon); hammered gold alloy (jewelry).

• Form
  • Inside the old temple of Chavin is a mazelike system of hallways
  • Passageways have no natural light source; they are lit by candles and lamps
  • At the center, underground, is the Lanzon Stone; blade shaped; which may also represent a primitive plow; hence, the role of the god ensuring a successful crop
  • Depicts a powerful figure that is part human and part animal; the god of the temple complex.
  • Head of snakes and a face of a jaguar
  • Eyebrows terminate in snakes
  • Flat relief; designs in a curvilinear pattern
  • 15 feet tall
• Function
  • Served as a cult figure
  • Center of pilgrimage; however, few had access to the Lanzon Stone
  • Modern scholars hypothesize that the stone acted as an oracle; hence a point of pilgrimage
  • New studies show the importance of acoustics in the underground chamber

• Relief sculpture, granite, Chavin de Huantar
  • Shows jaguars in shallow relief
  • Located on the ruins of a stairway at Chavin

• Nose ornament, hammered gold alloy, Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Form
    • Worn by males and females under the nose
    • Held in place by the semicircular section at the top
    • Two snake heads on either end
  • Function
    • Transforms the wearer into a supernatural being during ceremonies
  • Context
    • Elite men and women wore the ornaments as emblems of their ties to the religion and eventually were buried with them.
    • The Chavin religion is related to the appearance of the first large-scale precious metal objects; a revolutionary new metallurgical process
    • Technical innovations express the “wholly other” nature of the religion