The Mystery of Tiwanaku / Phase 17

 

It is theorized the Pumapunku complex as well as its surrounding temples, the Akapana Pyramid, Kalasasaya, Putuni and Kerikala complexes functioned as spiritual and ritual centers for the Tiwanaku. This area might have been viewed as the center of the Andean world, attracting pilgrims from far away to marvel at its beauty. These structures transformed the local landscape; Pumapunku was purposely integrated with Illimani Mountain, a sacred peak that the Tiwanaku people believed to be home to the spirits of their dead. This area was believed to have existed between heaven and Earth.

Illimani Mountain-in-the-Cordillera-Real

The spiritual significance and the sense of wonder would have been amplified into a "mind-altering and life-changing experience" with hallucinogenic plants. Examinations of hair samples exhibit remnants of psychoactive substances in many mummies found in Tiwanaku culture mummies from Northern Chile, even those of babies as young as 1 year of age, demonstrating the importance of these substances to the Tiwanaku.   As was characteristic of civilizations around this time, the Tiwanaku actively incorporated human sacrifice into their culture. The remains of dismembered bodies have been found throughout the area. Ceramic artifacts depict imagery of warriors, masked with puma skulls, decapitating their enemies and holding trophy skulls, adorned with belts of human heads with their tongues torn out.

 

Original Tiwanaku -Pumapunku complex.

The Middle Horizon Period extended from 600 – 1000 A.D. and once again the only other contemporary civilization of note was the Wari in Peru.   The Tiwanaku Empire probably entered its most powerful phase in the 8th century AD. Many smaller towns or colonies were set up in the vast region under Tiwanaku rule. The most imposing monument at Tiwanaku was the temple of Akapana. It was a pyramid originally with seven superimposed platforms with stone retaining walls rising to a height of over 18 meters. Only the lowest of these and part of one of the intermediate walls survive intact. Investigations have shown that it was originally clad in blue stone and surmounted by a temple, as was customary in Mesoamerican pyramids.

 

Tiwanaku at its greatest territorial extent ca. 950 A D.

Sometimes called the Expansive Period, 700-1200 AD., it was a period of decline, with less elaborate pottery and fewer construction projects.   The political dominance of Tiwanaku began to decline in the 11th century A.D., and the empire collapsed in the first  half of the 12th century A.D. The reasons for this collapse are not yet understood. Scholars now reject invasion and conquest and attribute it to climatic change, giving rise to poor harvests and a progressive weakening of the central power to the point when it yielded to the pressures for autonomy from its components.  Whatever took place the change had to be gradual there was no sudden ending, as many writers would like us to believe.  People adapt and do whatever is necessary to keep on living.  An example is the Maya, whose culture did not disappear suddenly -they just moved to another location where they could live as before.
More than likely one of the main reasons for the people abandoning the Tiwanaku area was the decrease in the water level of Lake Titicaca, which supplied water to their crops the suka kollas. These artificially raised planting mounds, which were separated by shallow canals, were filled with water that now was beginning to dry up. The canals could no longer supply moisture for growing crops, and the solar radiation they received from the sun during the day destroyed the plants.  This happened gradually as the level of the lake slowly went down.  Some estimate by as much as 50 meters by the end, and as one goes further east; the Altiplano becomes an area of very dry arid land.  Therefore, abandonment by the vast majority was the only option.

 

Aerial View Tiwanaku Main Site (excluding Pumapunku)

After 1,000 AD, the empire collapsed and complete de-urbanization occurred by 1250 A.D. Localized raised field cultivation continued, but large-scale systems were not restored. 

 

Complete Map of Tiwanaku Area

After the decline of Tiwanaku other Aymara societies emerged, politically organized, the most important kingdoms being the Lupaqa and Qulla. However, Tiwanaku was still used as a major religious place of pilgrimage, but no longer had a population that lived there or maintained it.  This continued into Inca times and beyond.

 

Epilogue:

Once satisfied that the humans were able to live and survive successfully.  According the story, the Ancient Astronauts decided to “leave the land and go to the Pacific seacoast where they walked across the water until they disappeared.”  Since Bolivia is a land locked country, they headed due west through Peru to the seacoast more than likely in a spacecraft.

Tiwanaku / Peru  pacific seacoast

The word "Viracocha" literally means "Sea Foam."  Therefore, this seems to be the end of the Ancient Astronaut intervention.  However, this is not the end of the story of the people who had been the Tiwanaku who had to go on living with or without their help.  The Ancient Astronauts probably left the area at the time the when Akapana Pyramid was being built.  They may still have a space base hidden somewhere in the Andes Mountains today.

 

The End

The Mystery of Tiwanaku / Phase 16

 

Ancestor worship and kinship were integral parts of Aymara culture, and the huge chullpas or "chupa" at Sillustani were built for the house of the Aymara elite of the immediate pre-Inca and Inca period. The name for was first used in the 19th century by  Ludovico Bertonio. Bertonio referred to the basket burials of the semi-nomadic pastoralists as "chullpas" and actually referred to the stone towers as "uta Aymara" "houses of the soul". However, the term "chullpa" is still used today for the towers.

 

Close-up of a Chullpa

Many of the chullpas at Sillustani show pre-Inca characteristics that were later redressed with Inca stone blocks. Similar chullpas are found throughout the entire south Central Andes with the above ground burial styles going back at least to mature Tiwanaku (ca. AD 500-950).

 

Tomb at Tiwanaku

The insides of the tombs were built to hold entire groups of people, most likely extended families of the Aymara elite. Corpses were not intentionally mummified, but in the dry environment created by the closed tomb, they survived for centuries. Most mummy bundles indicate burial in a fetal position. Some of the tombs also have various animal shapes carved into the stone. The only openings to the buildings face east, where it was believed the Sun was reborn by Mother Earth each day.

Stone Pillars atop the Akapana Pyramid

At Tiwanaku, we seem to have an interesting situation where the city's previous infrastructure was razed and completely redone just before the civilization-entered decline.  It seems that around 700 A.D., after Tiwanaku had become a monumental and powerful city, there was a sudden change to direct all construction efforts toward building what was the largest structure in the Andes. The previous monuments of the city were torn down and their stones reused to build the Akapana Pyramid. The effort was too great, and the pyramid lay unfinished when the civilization ended.

 

Steps of the Akapana Pyramid and a moat

The 59-foot-tall Akapana Pyramid resembles a large natural hill more than a pyramid. Closer inspection shows walls and columns sticking out from the base, carved stones on its summit, and tumbling down the sides. The somewhat amorphous shape of this tremendous pyramid is the result of centuries of looting and quarrying of its stones for colonial churches and even for a railway built in the 1900s.

 

The Akapana Pyramid was made with stone blocks

The Akapana is an approximately cross-shaped pyramidal structure that is 257 m wide, 197 m broad at its maximum, and 16.5 m tall. At its center, there is what appears to have been a sunken court that has been destroyed by a deep looters excavation that extends from the center of this structure to its eastern side. Material from the looters excavation was dumped off the eastern side of the Akapana. A staircase with sculptures is present on its western side. Possible residential complexes might have occupied both the northeast and southeast corners of this structure. Originally, the Akapana was thought to have been made from a modified hill. However, recent studies have shown that it is a manmade earthen mound. That is faced with a mixture of large and small stone blocks.  However, the Akapana Pyramid seems to have been surrounded by a moat.

 

Akapana Pyramid hydraulic water system

The largest stone block within the Akapana, which consists of Andesite, is estimated to weigh 65.70 metric tons. The structure was possibly for the shaman-puma relationship or transformation. Tenon puma and human heads stud the upper terraces.  The remains of human sacrifices were found under and around the Akapana Pyramid.  Just what did the Ancient Astronauts think of human sacrifice?  They probably did not oppose it, because anything that promoted the gods of Tiwanaku promoted them.  Besides the number sacrificed in comparison to the total population was small and thus of no consequence as far as they were concerned.

 

“I” Shaped clamps or hammered Ingots

The drainage systems of the Akapana Pyramid and Pumapunku include conduits composed of red sandstone blocks held together by ternary (copper/arsenic/nickel) bronze architectural clamps. Cold hammering of ingots created the I-shaped architectural clamps of the Akapana.

 

Wall  with Tenon puma and human heads on Akapana Pyramid

Tenon puma and human heads stud the upper terraces of the Akapana Pyramid.   The east side of the Akapana Pyramid was built on the eastern side of early Tiwanaku, that later became a boundary for the ceremonial center and the urban area. It was made of a thick prepared floor of sand and clay and supported a group of buildings. Yellow and red clay were used in different areas for what seems like aesthetic purposes indicating its importance to their culture.

 

Aerial View - Akapana Pyramid

The Mystery of Tiwanaku / Phase 15

 

Pumapunku stone with precision cut slot and holes

The Early Intermediate Period 200 A.D. – 600 A.D. ends and that means the Moche, and Nazca, civilizations are on the decline.  The Middle Horizon Period starts in 600 A.D. and the only civilization of consequence that remains is the Wari civilization in the foothills of Peru.   However, the civilization of Tiwanaku was still growing and spreading.
There is much controversy by ancient astronaut theorists about the technology used at Pumapunku and Tiwanaku.  Because they believe certain practices and methods used by these people in stone construction  does not fit the time.   They claim an outside technology was used to transport the monoliths and move them from location to location.  This is possible and based on a theory this could have indeed happened.  Here are some examples: No one knows how 160-ton rocks were transplanted to the megalithic site.  Without modern technology, how did they do it?  Such large rock platforms could have been used as launching pads for spacecraft into outer space.  At the top center of the Temple of the sun god is a being carved in the center who may be an astronaut.  Many large stone figures may depict warriors or guardians.  They may even be depicted as ET guards or warriors.

 

A Tiwanaku stone guard

The area within the kilometer separating the Pumapunku and Tiwanaku has been surveyed using ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, induced electrical conductivity, and magnetic susceptibility. The geophysical data collected from these surveys and excavations have revealed in the area between the Pumapunku and Tiwanaku the presence of numerous man-made structures still buried.

 

Pumapunku Construction Blocks

It is theorized by some that these blocks were put into molds similar to the way concrete is done today, except these were done in a seamless manner.  This could be evidence of futuristic technology.  The people that came after the people of Tiwanaku destroyed ninety per-cent of Tiwanaku and Pumapunku; they were the Inca, the Spanish  Colonialists, and the government of Bolivia.  They tore down the structures of Tiwanaku to use them in building their own structures. We know of two instances where they used the stones from Tiwanaku and Pumapunku to build a church and a railroad bridge.  That is why it looks as if the people of Tiwanaku never finished their construction projects.  What you see is the result of de-construction of the monuments left behind by the Tiwanaku by the people who came after them.  Besides the leaders of Tiwanaku were frequently  having older structures torn down to build new ones.

 

 

How the construction blocks could have been used in building structures at Pumapunku

The story says that after the Great Flood and the creation, Viracocha sent his sons (officers) went to visit the tribes to the Northeast and Northwest of Tiwanaku to determine if they still obeyed his commandments. They were sent as priests to instruct the people and they themselves possessed some incredible technology or power.  Viracocha himself is said to have traveled north of Tiwanaku which is implied by the Inca.     They also taught the tribes which plants were edible, which had medicinal properties, and which were poisonous. Eventually, Viracocha, and his officers reached the village of Cuzco.

 

An Early Inca Village

The Mystery of Tiwanaku / Phase 14

 

The Tiwanaku believed Viracocha created people out of rock.  One story has it that Viracocha created giants to move the massive stones that comprise much of Tiwanaku’s heaviest construction projects.  Then Viracocha grew unhappy with the giants and caused a flood to destroy them.  People of this time were for the most part simple minded and uneducated and could be swayed easily by propaganda and superstition generated by their leaders and priests.  These giants would have to have been extremely tall to cross Lake Titicaca from the Copacabana Peninsula to Tiwanaku to deliver the stones.  Therefore they would have had to been able to fly as well.  Here we go from one extreme to another-the story does not make any sense.

 

Tiwanaku Giant

As the story goes, Viracocha rose from Lake Titicaca during the time of darkness to bring forth light. He made the sun, moon, and the stars.  Since he was an Ancient Astronaut he had to take on the persona of a god, he had to be presented with these awesome powers.  He made humankind by breathing into stones, but his first creation were brainless giants that displeased him according to the story.  Why did he make giants and why brainless?  It could have been a failed genetic experiment. Therefore, they destroyed them. Apparently, the Ancient Astronauts had decided to make more clones for the local population.  Size and strength may have been necessary for the work but they lacked the intelligence needed carry out the task.  Therefore, those were destroyed and strength was swapped for brainpower.  No one knows how 160-ton rocks were transplanted to the megalithic site.  Without modern technology, how did they do it?  I do not believe reed boats would have transported 160-ton stones over the lake.  Either you would have one very large boat of gargantuan size or you would have a large fleet of hundreds of small boats to do it.  The task of moving a 160-ton stone across land seems even harder to do unless it was broken up into many pieces and then moved with what was available. The two new clones became Tiwanaku priests and through futuristic technology directed the building projects using spacecraft to carry the stones:

 

Spacecraft transporting construction stones

The stones were moved by the command of two priests according to one theory.  To the people they appeared to have the ability to defy the laws of gravity.  Magnetism of some sort (a tractor beam) was used in moving these huge megalithic stones.  The only explanation for this is they had contact with ET or were Ancient Astronauts themselves.
Pumapunku is located .63 miles northwest of Tiwanaku proper. Pumapunku also called "Puma Pumku" or "Puma Puncu"; it is part of a large temple complex or monument group that is located not for from the main site at Tiwanaku.   In Aymara, its name means, "The Door of the Cougar". The Pumapunku complex consists of an un-walled western court, a central un-walled esplanade, a terraced platform mound that is faced with megalithic stone, and a walled eastern court.

 

Tiwanaku Andesite rock quarry

In about 530 A. D. construction of Pumapunku began.  Originally, it consisted of series of platforms with a temple in the middle of the city.  Water would have surrounded some of the platforms where cut stone would be brought in from Lake Titicaca after being excavated on the Copacabana peninsula. These would be Andesite un-worked stone blocks.

Stone Route to Tiwanaku

Small tonnage rough-cut stone could have been transported by boat (or raft if large timber were available) to Pumapunku put on a platform where the local artisans would carve the rock. From there it could be put back on a boat or raft and moved by canal to the unloading or building location.  The canals could be dug extending from Lake Titicaca inland.  Llamas could be tethered to the boats or rafts to bring them farther up the canal from a path on either side of the canal.  If llamas were unable to do it then human slaves were used to do it.

 

Tiwanaku and local vicinity map

The Lake would have been much higher at this time than today and it would have been easy to transport the rock to the designated site by canal.  Looking at the map above you can see what the area looks like today it would be ideal for canals to be made to bring in the cut stone blocks.   There is plenty of swamp and small lakes in the area today and  at least two rivers or streams in the area.  However, not all these stones were transported in this manner as already stated.  They needed outside help to transport stones over 40 tons.  Based on the Ancient Astronaut premise.

 

Pumapunku platform area

Pumapunku is a terraced earthen mound that is faced with megalithic blocks.

 

Pumapunka Megalithic Blocks

Pumapunku is 167 m wide along its north-south axis and 117 m long along its east-west axis.

 

Pumapunku Temple Terraces being excavated

Pumapunka platforms

On the northeast and southeast corners of the Pumapunku are 20-meter wide projections that extend 27 meters north and south from the rectangular mound. The eastern edge of the Pumapunku is occupied by what is called the "Plataforma Lítica."

 

Pumapunku Temple Reconstruction

The Plataforma Lítica consists of a stone terrace that is 7 by 39 meters in dimension. This terrace is paved with multiple enormous stone blocks. The Plataforma Lítica contains the largest stone slab found in both the Pumapunku and Tiwanaku Site. This stone slab is 8 meters long, 5 meters wide and averages 1 meter thick. Based upon the specific gravity of the red sandstone from which it was carved, this stone slab has been estimated to weigh 131 metric tons.   Not something, that could easily be brought up a canal by a boat.

An Overlooking view of Pumapunku's structures

Excavations at the Pumapunku have documented “three major building epochs, in addition to small repairs and remodeling.

Pumapunku tiled room floor

At its peak, Pumapunku is thought to have been "unimaginably wondrous", adorned with polished metal plaques, brightly colored ceramic and fabric ornamentation, trafficked by costumed citizens, elaborately dressed priests and elites decked in exotic jewelry. Current understanding of this complex is limited due to its age, and the lack of a written record, which has not been deciphered or discovered yet.

 

Pilgrims at the Temple of Pumapunku

Determining the age of the Pumapunku complex has been a focus of researchers since the discovery of the Tiwanaku site. As noted by Andean specialist, Anthropology Professor W. H. Isbell, a radiocarbon date was obtained by Vranich from lowermost and oldest layer of mound fill forming Pumapunku. This layer was deposited during the first of three construction epochs.  It dates the initial construction of  Pumapunku at 536–600 A. D.

 

Aerial View of Pumapunku

The Mystery of Tiwanaku / Phase 13

 

From 400 A.D., onward Tiwanaku went from a locally dominant force to a powerful state and began to spread through conquest and assimilation.  When a civilization such as Tiwanaku begins heavy architectural construction projects one begins to suspect that this civilization has reached the predatory stage.  This is when a civilization like Tiwanaku conquers surrounding territory and captures large numbers of people and enslaves them in order to carry out dangerous architectural construction projects. Some of those captured would be used as human sacrifices too.  The situation would be similar with territory that was assimilated, and became associated with them by furnishing slaves and human sacrifices by those leaders to maintain their own rule and independence.  This was a common practice in Mesoamerica.  When one thinks of these large dangerous construction projects carried out in ancient history-the weight of and the amount of stones moved-there must have been an incalculable loss of human life.  This means these slave populations had to be quite large, when the only form of technology was slave technology.  Therefore, this has led many people to wonder if some of these monumental architectural projects had outside help.  That is, futuristic technology, which could only have been provided by Ancient Astronauts.
Tiwanaku enclaves have been discovered in recent times as far south as the Lake Poopo a salt lake in southern Bolivia.  Lake Titicaca empties into this lake by way of the Desaguadero River.  The South Poopo inhabitants developed a unique style of ceramics with triangular spirals.

 

Tiwanaku - Lake Poopo and the Desaguadero River

West of Kalasasaya Temple is a large rectangular area known as Putuni or Palacio de los Sarcofagos, which is still being excavated.

 

The Putuni Complex- The Palace of Sarcophagi

 

At the eastern end of the site is a heap of rubble known as Kantatayita.

Geometric designs found at the Kantatayita Mound

Archaeologists have not yet been able to piece together what sort of structure was made from the pieces, but they are intriguingly carved with geometrical designs. . According to one archeologist, her excavations east of the Kalasasaya Complex show that previous ritual areas and houses of important people must have been razed to build the Putuni Complex.

 

Tiwanaku with the Putuni complex in the foreground

So far, the analysis of the geo-radar information has surpassed investigator’s expectations.  They had expected that the clay fill eroding from the Akapana Pyramid would make the entire area opaque to the radar, but instead the radar image reveals several interesting anomalies. A large diagonal line marks the modern tourist path, but to the south of that, were noted two structures, one superimposed on the other; the first structure in the highlighted square is a round or D-shaped form, and the second structure is a single rectilinear feature located a bit deeper.  A trench will be dug to investigate both structures and to see how they relate to one another. A Geophysical survey will be used further to the east, where the ground topography suggests the presence of more buried monuments and structures.
Along with this separation of occupations, there was also a hierarchal stratification within the empire. The elites of Tiwanaku lived inside four walls that were surrounded by a moat. This moat, some believe, was to create the image of a sacred island.

Tiwanaku moat

Inside the walls there were many images of human origin that only the elites were privileged to see, despite the fact that these images represent the beginning of all humans not only the elite. Commoners may have only ever entered this structure for ceremonial purposes since it was home to the holiest of shrines.

Tiwanaku- Faces of the noble room

The community grew to urban proportions between AD 600 and AD 800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes. According to early estimates, at its maximum extent, the city covered approximately 6.5 square kilometers, and had between 15,000 – 30,000 inhabitants. However, satellite imaging was used recently to map the extent of fossilized suka kollus across the three primary valleys of Tiwanaku, arriving at population-carrying capacity estimates of anywhere between 285,000 and 1,482,000 people.

 

The Semi- Subterranean Temple

The Tiwanaku civilization was an agrarian based economy. The population is estimated at an 115,000 peak in the concentrated, urbanized core area of Tiwanaku, with 365,000 totals in the city and three nearby valleys. In all probability, state-controlled agriculture produced the surplus wealth to support the urban center and administrative specialists.  Tiwanaku and adjacent valleys are clearly agricultural areas. A series of villages lining the sides of the valleys and 19,000 hectares of fossil raised fields remain in evidence today, sufficient area to sustain a population of 500,000 or more persons, given sufficient water flow to the system. The extensive and intensive raised field agriculture was dependent on large-scale reclamation of wetlands, dikes, aqueducts, causeways and canals. Massive hydraulic projects controlled the waters. The raised fields, the most important aspect of the Tiwanaku Empire’s agrarian economy, were the largest expanse of raised fields in the world in its time.

Aerial View of the Putuni Complex, the Kalasasaya Complex, and the Semi-Subterranean Temple