Questions & Answers

Below are questions answered by Alexei Vranich, Penn Museum Research Associate and Director of the Tiwanaku Project. Have a question you'd like to ask? Send it to websiters@museum.upenn.edu.

You dated Tiwanaku to A.D. 500-950. Didn't it have a much longer flourishing period from about A.D. 300-1100?

Dating collapse is always difficult. Even after the site was abandoned, people continued to live in the area and leave offerings. I'm placing the end of Tiwanaku a bit earlier than most at A.D. 950 based on the last carbon date we have associated with a monumental structure. Something important happened around that date that radically transformed Tiwanaku. The settlements in Moquegua, Peru, are also abandoned, and several monumental structures at Tiwanaku remain incomplete. However, in the next year we should be getting much more information, so I might quite possibly stand corrected.

Is the name of the city not spelled Tihuanaco?

There are at least half a dozen ways to spell Tiwanaku. I've seen Tiaguanaco, Tiahuanaco, Tiahuanacu, Tia huanaco, Tiwanaku, and Tiawanaku. I use the way the Aymara spell it (Tiwanaku) for the ruins, and Tiahuanaco for the modern town.

Have any icons of gods or goddesses been discovered in the ruins? Have any of the actual deities themselves been identified?

There are several monoliths on the site that mostly likely represented deity figures, such as the Ponce monolith found in the Kalasasaya Complex. Probably the most famous depiction of a deity figure is that of the "Staff God" on the Gateway of the Sun. Many scholars have likened this figure to "Viracocha", the creator god of the Inca. Since there is no written record at the time, we can never be certain if this figure represents Viracocha or not for the Tiwanaku people. What is certain is that this deity figure has a long history in the Andes, found in such places an Nazca, where the famous lines in the desert are found.

How do you determine how far to go with a reconstruction? How much of what you reconstruct is pure guesswork?

One of the biggest problems with Tiwanaku is the difficulty figuring out the difference between the modern reconstructions and the original remains. When archaeologists do reconstruct, the rule is that you make it clear what was original and what is new. Ideally, the reconstructed part can be easily dismantled in the future if it proves to be incorrect.

Personally, I'm against reconstructing archaeological sites and would prefer to consolidate the remains so that both scholars and tourists alike can view the remains and come to their own conclusions.

What do you think the population size was at this site?

Estimating prehistoric populations is a tough one for sure. The monuments of Tiwanaku are only a small part of the site. A surface scatter of pottery, bone and ash spread out for about 4 to 6 square km indicating that a good amount of people lived around the monuments. Was the entire site occupied at the same time, or did the population move around over the centuries that the city was occupied? Hard to tell without more excavation. At the moment, estimates for the population of the city range from 10,000 to 60,000 at its height.

What measures are being taken in order to preserve the site?

The situation at the site is quite critical. In the brief time that I've been there I've seen more roads and houses built directly on the site, destroying archaeological remains and ruining the aesthetics of the place. Just two weeks ago we (Japan-Unesco) finished evaluating the condition of the site and we'll be proposing a management plan for both the town and site in November. Hopefully this plan will be able to preserve the site and direct growth in a sustainable manner.

Has any progress been made in deciphering the glyphs on the gateway? Do they seem to convey any particular cultural ideas beyond just being visual symbols? I was also wondering if any artifacts have been found that have similar glyphs.

The symbols on the gateway are found in artifacts not only all across Tiwanaku (on pottery, textiles, stone, bone carvings), but across the entire Andes in the time period before and after. The primary symbol on the gate is the "staff god" or the "gateway god," the "crying god," and a few other versions. This symbol is especially prevalent in designs across many pre-Columbian cultures.

As for the meaning, that's another can of worms. Some people see a calender of days and months, others a record of the lunar and solar cycle, while other see language and a similarity to Mayan writing. Sometimes I listen to the guides give explanation to their tour groups to get the latest trend. My opinion? I believe it has some calendric aspect, but that's about as far as I go at the moment.

Without a doubt, the Gateway was an important piece of architecture at Tiwanaku and was probably placed in a prominent place. At the present, the Gateway is as recognizable and iconic to every Bolivian as the Liberty Bell is to North Americans.

Can you tell me something about the stone quarries you investigate or list some literature?

Ponce Sangines published an extensive study on the origin of sandstones at the Pumapunku temple and ideas on how they were constructed. His book is called Pumapunku.

Pierre Protzen's study is one of best on the particulars of the masonry and construction method. He should be coming out with a substantial publication on his several years of study on the site.

Were any musical instruments found during your digs?

In the next valley over, Dr. John Janusek from Vanderbilt University excavated what appears to be a workshop that specialized in making musical instruments. I believe his research was published in Latin American Antiquity in 2000.

What kinds of artifacts are you finding and how can they be linked to the European conquests?

In this season alone we've found thousands of artifacts such as ceramics, bones of animals and people, and tools made in stone and metal. We also collected soil samples for chemical analysis from the floors to see if we can determine what types of activities were going on inside and outside the houses. We'll be conducting an analysis of these remains during year.

On the temple of Pumapunku we've found a very ephemeral Colonial occupation in the form of a few pot sherds and a metal nail. The Inka settlement next to the temple was burned at some point, and while it would be tempting to related this to the Spanish conquest of the basin, the resolution of the evidence we have is not that fine.

Will you examine the magnetic field of the Akapana, especially the alignment in the direction of the Pumapunku?

Just about every guide to the site places a compass on the Akapana pyramid stone to show its magnetic properties. I've never paid much attention to this since the compass effect is a natural property of the stone. However, Tiwanaku is full of alignments--solar and lunar towards natural features on the landscape--I would be interested in investigating.

Since it has been stated that the Gateway is 14,000 years old, is it possible to prove or disprove this? Also, how do you account for images of Africans and Chinese features in the small temple?

Tiwanaku is a magnet for Atlantis hunters and a variety of new agers. The idea that Tiwanaku is 14,000 years old is based on a rather faulty study done in 1926. Since then, there has been a huge quantity of work both on the archaeology and geology of the area, and all data indicates that Tiwanaku existed from around A.D. 300-500 to 900-1000.

Still, the Atlantis hunters flock to the site. I believe the Discovery Channel is even making another documentary on the possibility that the Andes is the lost continent described by Plato.

As for the elephants and other animals that are supposed to be on the Gateway, I really can't find them myself. One carving that is frequently cited as an elephant (including by several guides) is in fact a condor.

Were the Tiwanaku people descendants of Easter Island inhabitants?

There is some limited evidence that Polynesians may have sailed as far as the coast of South America, but their impact on the cultural development of the area is quite limited. The prehistory of the Titicaca basin is well documented, and we have been able to chart the local development of several interesting civilizations around the shores of the lake with Tiwanaku being the largest and most complex before the arrival of the Inka.