"Of all of the ancient cultures I admire, that of Chavin amazes me the most. Actually, it has been the inspiration behind most of my art"

Pablo Picasso

•3,177 m elevation in highland Peru (central-northern Peru)

•Situated in a valley, where the Mosna and Wacheksa streams meet

•Located on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Blanca

•Chavin de Huantar is about half-way between the coast and the jungle of Peru

•Intersection of several major trade routes through the mountains, making it a strategically located capital

•Between the coast and the jungle, an ideal location for the dissemination and collection of both ideas and material goods.

Example of Pre-Inca irrigation system.

Maize

Quinoa

Llamas

•A gathering place for worship.

•Network of passageways and strategic ducts.

•U-shaped flat top pyramid.

•Sunken circular court.

•Clay friezes and low relief stone carvings.

•The New Temple “forms a continuum” with the Old Temple. And contained galleries and plazas.

•Findings of broken pots and bones from food, that this gallery was a storage area for ritual items.

•Many human bones also were found, which brings about the assumption that there was ritual cannibalism being practiced.

A startling five-meters-high stone figure whose imposing face - ferocious divinities mixing men, birds, tigers and snakes.

Similar iconographic images are seen

repeatedly in Chavin art, most coming

from the jungle to the east. Staff bearing

gods, human-animal combinations, and

priests and shamans transforming are the

most prevalent.

Features a zoomorphic figure dominated by cayman attributes, believed to narrate a cosmological myth. A slightly tapered 2.52 m tall .

Tenon-heads like this one once hung high on exterior walls at Chavín, encircling the temple . They are thought to represent stages of a drug-induced human-to-feline shamanic transformation.

http://archive.cyark.org/chavin-de-huantar-infohttp://www.stanford.edu/~johnrick/chavin_wrap/chavin/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav%C3%ADn_de_Huantarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav%C3%ADn_culturehttp://www.rumbosonline.com/articles/3-58-destinochavin.htmhttp://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/south_america/chavin_de_huantar.htmlhttp://studentwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~m_finnegan/http://copland.udel.edu/~roe/chavin.htmlhttp://www.jqjacobs.net/andes/tello.htmlhttp://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/cultures/chavin.htmlhttp://www.realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/South_America.htm