For Richard Burger, archaeology has turned up many surprising things. This includes romance, which blossomed when he met his archaeologist wife, Lucy Salazar, at a dig in her native Peru. “Sites are not all that romantic. There’s too much work!” says Burger. Luckily, however, nearby Lima was in the full flood of a Southern Hemisphere Spring, and love found its way out of the dusty remains after all.
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At the top, decorating the entrance to a central chamber, is a frieze depicting a giant mouth with three-foot long fangs.
Covered in carvings of animals and birds, this giant stone shaft is thought to tell an important creation story. It was found among the ruins of the Lanzon de Templo Viaje in Northern Peru. Amazingly sophisticated with a complex network of underground tunnels and chambers, the temple was a striking example of the capability of these peace-loving people to produce elaborate art work.
The Raimondi Stela is one of the finest surviving examples of contour rivalry, one of the fundamental techniques used in Chavin art. Contour rivalry makes images appear differently depending on the angle from which they are viewed, enabling a single art work to communicate several messages. The image on the Raimondi Stela, viewed from one angle, shows a forbidding deity looking up at his head-dress of snakes and volutes and holding two staffs in his hands. Yet, seen upside down, the head-dress is transformed into a row of smiling faces and the deity appears to be a grinning reptie, flanked by more beaming heads where the staffs once were. The concept is thought to reflect the fascination with duality which underpinned much of ancient Andean culture.
The Raimondi Stela is seven feet high and made of highly polished granite. The design on it is one of the finest examples of contour rivalry, a technique in which the image changes depending on what way you look at it. For instance, when viewed one way we see an image of a fearsome deity holding two staffs. However, upside down it looks like a smiling reptile. This is just one example of many that are carved into the stone.
The problem with the stela is that design incisions are so light that it is very difficult to see all of the incredible detail that it beholds. It is for this purpose many drawings of it have been.
Many of the artefacts found at this site are now on display in the Museo de la Nación in Lima. A flourishing civilation in the early half of the first millennium BC, Chavin de Huantar underwent considerable social chance between 500 and 300 BC when the Chavin civilization began to decline. Some building work was abandoned unfinished and large ceremonial sites were left to decay. A small village grew up in its place and this was occupied by a succession of peoples, continuing in use as late as the 1940s.
The sites of three major temples can be seen today: the Circular Plaza, the Old Temple and New Temple. Burial goods, including precious metals, textiles and jewels, have been found in the graves of the elite on the site, along with local artwork, decorative pottery, spoons and tapestries.
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