The Municipal Museum of Taraco constitutes an important effort to value part of a forgotten cultural patrimony of Puno and of the altiplano in general.

We have been able to achieve this thanks to the investigators who are studying the site. Acknowledgements include, among others, Charles Stanish, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA; Cecilia Chávez Justo and Edmundo de la Vega Machicao, responsible for the design, assembly, and texts of the exposition; and finally, from California, Charles Steinmetz and Deborah Arnold, who generously financed the execution of this work.

For the photos used to make this we owe Mariolein Sabarte Belacortu and Rainer Hostnig, who kindly provided them to share with you. The translation of the Spanish to the English, we must a Karl La Favre.

What you have seen on this webpage is only a sample, and is intended to invite many visitors, Peruvian and foreign, to come to discover and to enjoy the Museum and the ancient history it displays. Taraco is located only 30 minutes away from Juliaca and 75 minutes from Puno (Peru); the Municipal Museum is located to the left of the municipality building, opposite the main plaza.

This is one of the best known and most famous sculptures of Taraco. It was extensively described and studied by Sergio Chávez and Karen Mohr during the 1970’s. It is a great, quadrangular pillar of gray quartzite, with polished surfaces and round edges. The four faces have been engraved with figures in bas-relief. Representations of a man and a woman with crossed arms over the chest occupy parallel faces, in symmetrical opposition, so that their gazes are oriented in opposing directions. Their faces, with round eyes, eyebrows and nose joined into the shape of a T, an ajar mouth in the form of an oval , and thick lips accompanied by lines that resemble a moustache and beard, are typical representations during the Formative period. The other two faces of the monolith have figures of two-headed snakes but with long ears that seem to represent another animal. Another important element of the design is heads with human faces out of which appendices project that resemble hooks. The iconography has shared similarities with the monoliths of Pucara and Tiwanaku, but also shares similarities of design with the Paracas culture of Ica.

MONOLITH OF THE SNAKE

The snake was also one of the main motifs in the sacred iconography. Its symbolic value lies in the fact that it is an animal that links different spaces (the subterranean world and the surface, the land and the water), as well as the fact that its movement is similar to of a ray but in a horizontal sense.

Chronology: Middle Formative (1300 – 500 B.C.)
Origin: Unknown

ENGRAVED STELAE

This group of monoliths is one of the most important. They are large shale stone blocks, of slightly rectangular form, whose two wider surfaces have been engraved in high relief with representations of suches (a type of fish), toads, and possibly otters, sacred animals linked to water. They all have been represented emerging from the land and being directed to the sky. The meaning of these figures can be interpreted as an exhortation or announcement of rain. The figures of engraved circles that accompany them would have a meaning of origin or sacred destiny linked to Pachamama (Mother Earth). This type of stela was widely distributed in the altiplano.

Chronology: Middle Formative (1300 – 500 B.C.)
Origin: City of Taraco

Introduction

The cultures that developed in the altiplano during the prehispanic period were diverse, as are the traces of their existence.  Stone sculpture is one of these traces, but it is also one of the expressions of the greater force and beauty with which they transmit to us an ancient inheritance of art and power expressed in stone.

These sculptures are not cold vestiges of history.  They are the voice of our ancestors, who, through time and in a language of stone, tell us of their life, of their everyday world but also of their magic world.  To listen to them is an obligation; to understand them a challenge.

Taraco is without doubt a privileged place, since it has one of the biggest and most important collections of stone sculpture in the altiplano and the Andes.  This has clearly been understood by the municipal authorities, who have assumed the responsibility to initiate the creation of a Municipal Museum, in which the vestiges of our history are not only preserved and protected, but moreover are displayed so that we ourselves and foreigners can engage in a dialogue with the past.

It is under this understanding that the Municipal District of Taraco is honored to offer the present exposition of the stone sculpture of Taraco.  This first phase of the project of the Municipal Museum has been realized thanks to the decided and generous collaboration of Dr. Charles Stanish, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA; he and his team of professionals not only share in the execution of the project but in the same spirit which animates it.

Taraco, November 2004

SEQUENCE OF THE PREHISPANIC HISTORY OF THE ALTIPLANO

In the prehispanic history of the Andes, the altiplano represents one of the principal centers of high culture. It not only was one of the richest and most densely populated regions but also constitutes a center of origin in the domestication of plants and animals, the appearance of the first village groups, copper metallurgy, and the development of the state. The prehispanic historical and cultural process of this region has been divided into five wide periods that cover more than 10,000 years of history. These periods are clearly identified along the Ramis river, in a diversity of sites that offer a great body of information for understanding the prehistory of the region.

1. Archaic Period (8000 – 2000 B.C.) The first settlement of the altiplano, over 10,000 years ago, was by small groups of hunter-gatherers. Their traces, cave paintings and stone tools, can be seen in a variety of sites in the department (Lenzora, Pizacoma, Qelqatani, Tumuko, Salcedo, amongst others).
   
   The domestication of plants (potato, oca, quinoa) and animals (lama, alpaca, guinea pig) around 4000 B.C. allowed for the development of the first agro-pastorial societies.
   
   
2. Formative Period (2000 B.C. - 400 A.D.) During the Formative period, the altiplano societies consolidated and intensified their adaptation to the environment. They developed agricultural and hydraulic technology, constructed large ceremonial centers, and undertook artistic and technical development of ceramics, textiles, metals, and stone sculpture. In the northern Lake Titicaca basin the cultures Qaluyo (1400-600 B.C.), Cusipata (800-250 B.C.), and Pukara (250 B.C. - 400 A.D.) developed. In the south, now Bolivia, there were Chiripa (1300-200 B.C.), Kalasasaya (600 B.C - 300 A.D.), and Qeya (100-400 A.D.).
   
   
3. Tiwanaku Period (400 - 1100 A.D.) Tiwanaku became one of the largest and most important states of Andean history. It extended over a great territory that included parts of what are now Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. With Tiwanaku, altiplano society reached a very high level of development in agriculture, architecture, and craftmanship, but above all in economic, political, and social organization. The altiplano was the nuclear center of the culture. Sites such as Maravillas, Anta Moq'o, Puquis, Capallini, the island of Esteves and Amantani, Huaquina, Sillumocco, and others represent Tiwanaku settlement in Puno.
   
   
4. Altiplano Period (1100 - 1450 A.D.) After the collapse of Tiwanaku, a variety of rival, independent kingdoms arose, including the Kollas, Lupacas, Pakajes, and Omasuyos, amongst others. During this period intense military activity forced people to relocate to settlements atop hills and to protect these settlements with large walls. These places, known as "Pucaras" or fortresses, are found throughout Puno, at sites such as Lloqolloqo, Miscolla, Incacancha, Lamparaquen, Chila, and Tanka Tanka. Funerary style changed radically, chullpas being the most characteristic element. Chullpas are large funerary towers, of circular or quadrangular plan, built with stone and/or clay. Sites displaying this tradition include Sillustani, Cutimbo, and Arku Punku, as well as Cerro Imango, Quealichupa, and Pukaorqo, among others.
   
   
5. Period of Inca Occupation (1450 - 1533 A.D.) After the Inca conquest (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), the altiplano became one of the most important provinces of the empire, Collasuyo. Besides the mythical significance of Lake Titicaca, which they considered "Pakarina" or a place of origin, the altiplano offered a great wealth of resources, products, and labor. During this period new settlements, such as Hatuncolla and Chucuito, functioned as large regional administrative centers and main towns in the network of roads that connected the empire. Inca influence can be seen in the stonework of the period, for example in the chullpas of Sillustani and Cutimbo and the temple of Inca Uyu.
   

STONE SCULPTURE IN THE ALTIPLANO

Stone sculpture is one of the most complex and valuable cultural traditions to have developed in altiplano societies. It constitutes a high expression of both universal and Andean art. A deeply symbolic, conceptual and ritual art, it synthesizes and expresses the world view of the people who created it. The iconography includes images of animals, both real and mythical, divine and sacred gods, and geometric figures of allegoric character. Nevertheless the fundamental intention was not to create an exact and faithful image of reality, but rather was to grasp and express the essence of the represented person, animal, or object.

But this stone sculpture was not a purely aesthetic art. It was a functional art that condensed cosmological, religious, and technological meanings, as well as political and ideological conceptions. It was an official art, one suitable for a very developed and complex society. Its elaboration and ritual use was carried out by groups of specialists narrowly linked to and dependent upon the elite rulers who adopted the art as a mechanism for the creation of elements of ethnic identity as well as symbols of their political and religious power.

The prehispanic sculptural tradition in the Lake Titicaca basin is basically related to the Formative period (1300 B.C. – 400 A.D.) and Tiwanaku (400 – 1100 A.D.). In this time, nearly 2500 years, the sculptural styles changed and evolved. The oldest sculptures would also be the simplest, stone blocks of irregular contours but with slightly rectangular or pyramidal forms, of the huanca type, whose surfaces were only planed to eliminate irregularities and were without any type of design. Subsequently large monoliths with worked surfaces in high and bas-relief were incorporated, with symbolic and naturalistic representations of animals, divinities, and geometric figures. Finally there were three-dimensional monolithic figures, of priests or gods adorned with a complex symbolic iconography. Stone sculpture did not serve only monumental and ritual purposes; sculptures with a structural and ornamental character in architectural constructions were also used.

STONE SCULPTURE IN TARACO

In the context of prehispanic history, Taraco represents an important center in the development of Andean sculptural art. It was during the Formative period that stone sculpture reached its greatest development and meaning.
In the Middle Formative (1300 – 600 B.C.) diverse agro-pastoral village groups developed. They initiated an intensive production of large monoliths in which they expressed a special world view that integrates into a totality Man, Nature, and the Divine. Sculptures emerge with engraved figures in high relief of geometric symbols, sacred animals, natural forces, and mythical figures, whom are invoked in requests for rain and to get rid of frosts. These sculptures were made with different types of rocks originating in quarries including Cupisco, Collana, and Compi. Their production demanded great time and energy, as well as a great mastery of carving and a complex iconography of reference. All would have been directed and organized by the Curacas or Mallkus of each locality. The sculptures were located at the high points of sacred mounds or Huacas, like that of Anta Moq'o, where places of worship were built, centers of great ritual ceremonies.