Portal:Architecture/Selected article/2007-34

"Gateway of the Sun", Tiwanaku, drawn by Ephraim Squier in 1877. The scale is exaggerated in this drawing.

Tiwanaku (Spanish spellings: Tiahuanaco and Tiahuanacu) is an important Pre-Columbian archaeological site in Bolivia. Tiwanaku is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important precursors to the Inca Empire, flourishing as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for approximately five hundred years. The ruins of the ancient city state are near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca, about 72 km (44 miles) west of La Paz, Bolivia

Tiwanaku architecture is characterized by large stones, weighing up to 100 tons, with stone cutting, squaring, dressing, and notching exceeding even the Inca in artisanship. The stones are set without mortar, so closely together that a razor blade cannot penetrate the seams. The stones are cut irregularly (unlike Egyptian square stone blocks), with each stone matched uniquely to its neighbors, possibly to resist lateral motion due to regional earthquakes. Supporting this notion is the use of elaborate "double-T" copper clamps to hold stones together in the critical drainage and irrigation tunnels.

The stone used to build Tiwanaku was quarried and then transported (without the aid of the wheel) 40km to the city and includes the largest cut stone block in the world weighing 200 tons. Although many large buildings were still intact when the Spanish first arrived, only three remain today, the Akapana (fortress), the Kalasaya (temple) and the Palace of the Ten Doors.

The Tiwanaku art style is distinctive, and, together with the related Huari style, defines the Middle Horizon of Andean prehistory. Both of these styles seem to have been heavily influenced by that of the earlier Pukara culture in the northern Titicaca Basin.

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