LA CULTURA TIWANAKU Y SU ICONOGRAFÍA SAGRADA. Medios para llegar a lo divino

Abstract

The focus of this iconographic and iconological study was to consider the man of the Tiwanaku society as a “symbolic being”, in constant search of the meaning of his existence. The members of this ancient Andean culture created a symbolic system as a means of adaptation to reality, to know and understand it; an instrument that helped them create an order in the world and feel part of it. Each representation would reflect certain meanings, through which the knowledge and fundamental principles of this ancient Andean society were transmitted. To carry out an iconographic and iconological study on the iconography Tiwanaku I developed a transdisciplinary research, which included studies of art, archaeology, semiotics, anthropology and biology.I used an interpretive method with contributions of historical-cultural analysis. I concentrated my study on the interpretation of the iconography present in ceramic material to compare it with lithic and bone materials that I could observe during my fieldwork in the Ceramic and Lithic Museums of the Ceremonial Center of Tiwanaku and in the Museum of Metals precious of La Paz, Bolivia. I complemented the analysis with a study of works written by some Chroniclers who mentioned Tiwanaku or who testified some aspects about the cosmovisions of some pre-Columbian Andean cultures.I also reviewed several texts by archaeologists who researched and excavated for decades at the Ceremonial Center, leaving important archaeological information on the findings of ritual material found on the site. The purpose of this study was to understand, through the interpretation of architecture and the iconographic system, the foundational values and principles of this ancient civilization, its worldview and its social structure. The Tiwanakota works and representations would, according to the hypothesis of this study, reflect the ideological structure of this civilization and a visual language in which the men of time identified themselves.The iconographic sets contributed to create a Tiwanaku cultural identity, integrating all members from different territories. Through this ideographic writing man could know and assume a vision of the world shared by the whole community. Incised or painted images on ritual instruments or on lithic monuments would show the central role that the “experience of the divine” occupied in the life of the Tiwanakotas. During the ceremonies, the priests, shamans or rulers of Tiwanaku used instruments carrying certain symbols in places considered sacred, which had with their actors and public an interactive relationship that valued the construction and recognition of a particular conception of the world.The use of certain iconographic sets represented in ritual instruments and/or in lithic works, would represent the constant search, by the Tiwanakota men, for an order, a balance with their environment. These would be powerful images, which encapsulated the cosmic-religious principles of Tiwanakota man, sacralizing some elements of nature.

Date of Award	1 Mar 2022
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Victoria Solanilla Demestre (Tutor)