Most of us have at least once heard about the Inca empire, the ancient state of pre-Columbian South America of the XI-XVI centuries. Enthusiastic legends tell about their famous civilization, and tourists from all over the world strive to visit the city of Machu Picchu, found high in the Andes, which is visited by up to 2 thousand people every day.
What has Bolivia to do with it? The Incas firmly believed that before them, no civilization could exist in principle. Until in the 15th century they stumbled upon the city of Tiwanaku. By that time, it was already destroyed, but even the ruins of the Incas were stunned. They were forced to admit that a highly developed culture existed before them.
Today, just 72 km from La Paz, you can see the ruins of the Tiwanaku civilization, which existed many centuries earlier than the Inca empire. It is named after the city of Tiwanaku with a population of about 40 thousand people, which was located east of the sacred lake Titicaca. Excavations of the site have shown that the settlement dates back to 1500 BC. And few people know that it was from her that the Incas inherited most of their vaunted achievements. Moreover, the Tiwanaku empire was much more powerful than the Incas, and more durable: the Inca state existed for about 100 years, and the city of Tiwanaku was considered only prosperous for more than 400 - between 500 and 950 AD.
The ruins are not always an interesting attraction for a tourist; it is important here who talks about them and how. We were lucky: our guide Olga Gomozova, who took us around the ancient settlement, is, firstly, Russian, secondly, she is studying to be an architect, that is, she is able to appreciate the uniqueness of the object, and thirdly, she clearly loves Bolivia. We were completely captured by her enthusiastic respect for the tiwanaku. And we, like Olga, also felt offended that very few people had heard the word "tiwanaku", the secret of civilization cannot be solved, scientists have the most meager information about it, and the settlement has practically not been restored, although since 2000 it has been included in the World Heritage List UNESCO. Excavations were carried out, but stopped: UNESCO money has run out.
Today Tiwanaku is an archaeological complex with an area of approximately 450 thousand square meters. m with partially restored structures, the original origin of which cannot be explained.
That is, it is clear that someone built all this. But it is completely incomprehensible how in the VI-X centuries it was possible to create such a powerful stone architecture. What tools were used to cut hard rocks such as basalt and andesite, cutting rectangular or square blocks with an absolutely flat surface? The quality of processing of individual blocks is simply unthinkable: it is impossible to do this with any primitive tools.
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How were monoliths weighing from 40 to 120 tons moved and precisely placed on top of each other?
How did they knock out drawings on them and even make through holes?
Where did the Indians get such a developed technology for the production of ceramics and metal processing? There are researchers who claim that the flawlessly laid grooves on the blocks are disc cutter marks. In the fifth century! And some especially impressionable historians suggest that witchcraft was involved here and that all this construction was the work of demons, not people. The famous researcher Tiahuanacu Arthur Poznansky claimed that the city arose 17 thousand years ago and became the "cradle of the American man." The origin of Tiwanaku is associated with both Atlantis and the mysterious race of titans - demigods who once lived on earth. Some researchers believed that the Northern European Vikings were involved in the construction of the city. Someone thinks that the complex was built with the help of space aliens, aliens. Well, there is an "earthly" version:a mysterious culture was created by the Aymara Indians. Whatever one may say, these stones are genuine architectural details of that time, that is, they are several thousand years old.
So about the titans. See what tall steps the people of the tiwanaku times built for themselves. Elena Titova, manager of Poseidon Expeditions with a height of 167 cm, the stairs are clearly high. How tall were the creators of this mysterious civilization?
The most impressive structure in the Tiwanaku settlement is an almost square (28.5x26 m) semi-underground temple, it is also called the Temple of Stone Heads. It is located almost 1.7 m below the soil level, along the perimeter it is surrounded by stone walls and upright monolithic block-pillars.
In the middle there are three statues - human figures, the largest is called the Bearded One, around his mouth is depicted something like a beard and mustache. This monolith (Monolito Barbado) is considered the oldest statue in Tiwanaku.
And the interior of the temple is decorated with bulky stone heads protruding from the walls, there are 175 of them in total. The faces are all different, including from the point of view of race. How did the Tiwanaku builders know about the diversity of existing nationalities? Where did they see all these faces, which are perceived only as portraits? Maybe these are representatives of various ethnic groups that were part of the Tiwanaku empire? Riddle.
On the territory of Tiwanaku, several monolithic human figures with a height of 1.5 to 7.3 m were found. From the semi-underground temple through the main entrance to the nearby Kalasasaya temple complex, another monolithic man, Ponce, is visible. It was named so in honor of the Bolivian archaeologist Carlos Ponce Sanjines who found this relic. The height of the figure is 2.4 m.
Tiwanaku, the National Museum of Archeology, houses the largest human depiction found here, Bennett's Monolith. It also got its name in honor of the American archaeologist Wendell S. Bennett, who in 1932 found this figure built into the floor of a semi-underground temple. This red sandstone statue is 7.3 m high, 1.3 m wide and weighs about 20 tons.
Arthur Poznanski got the opportunity to study the unique find in detail in 1933. In an effort to preserve the monument, he decided to transport it to La Paz at his own expense. For this, the scientist paid for the construction of a special railway line! It was laid from the Guaca-La Paz line to the location of the monolith in the ruins of Tiwanaku. Having received all the necessary permits from the Bolivian authorities, the archaeologist assembled a team of workers and delivered the monolith to the city. Many years later, in 2002, the statue was returned to its homeland in Tiwanaku and placed in a museum.
But the most famous and most mysterious monument to Tiwanaku is the Gate of the Sun (Puerta del Sol). They were hewn from a solid block of andesite, one of the hardest rocks to work with. Later, according to one of the versions, lightning split the stone into two parts. The height of the gate is about 3 m, width 4 m, thickness 0.5 m. The weight is estimated in different ways - from 10 to 44 tons. They stand in one of the corners of the Kalasasaya temple.
On the back of the gate are carved with amazing precision - how? than? - deep niches, which, according to scientists, were used for sacrifices.
Even more amazing is the elaborate carving on the top of the Gate of the Sun. There is depicted a certain deity, and on both sides of it there are 48 winged creatures, part with the head of a man, part with the head of a condor. After a long study of these drawings, scientists came to the conclusion that this is a stone calendar, possibly solar. The year according to the calendar consists of 12 months and begins on the day of the vernal equinox, in the southern hemisphere it is September. Moreover, it is possible that the Gate of the Sun was part of a large complex at Tiwanaku, which served as an observatory.
The death of the mysterious civilization Tiwanaku is also a mystery. It happened around 1180. More or less definitely, it is only assumed that the catastrophe happened rapidly. Although there are many versions about the reason. Judging by the location of the debris of the buildings, everything was destroyed and dumped into a heap by some force, it could be an explosion or an earthquake. Arthur Poznanski believed that the cause of death was "seismographic shifts that led to the overflow of the lake and volcanic eruptions." It is believed that the inhabitants of Tiwanaku left these places due to an unexpected drought. Of course, there is a legend that the gods were angry with the ancient builders and sent a terrible disaster that killed the inhabitants, and their city disappeared into the waters of Lake Titicaca. And, oddly enough, it was this hypothesis that received its confirmation - after eight centuries.
Legends that there are stone structures at the bottom of Lake Titicaca haunted the historians. Underwater exploration began in 1955, and in the 60s, scuba divers of the Argentine Swimming Federation discovered a whole architectural ensemble at the bottom of the lake, stretching for more than a kilometer. The walls, as tall as a human being, were located on a common foundation of stone blocks about five meters from one another in 30 rows.
In November 1980, the famous Bolivian explorer Hugo Boero Rojo found ruins at a depth of 15-20 m off the coast of Puerto Acosta, near the Peruvian border in the northeast of the lake. Everything looked very much like the terrestrial structures of Tiwanaku: temples made of huge stone blocks, stone roads and stairs.
Relatively recently, in 2000, an international archaeological expedition found on the bottom of Titicaca an ancient temple 200 m long and 50 m wide, a surrounding 800 m wall and a paved road. Experts believe that these ruins are from 1000 to 1500 years old, that is, they belong to the pre-Incan period.
Who knows if the mystery of the birth and death of the Tiwanaku civilization will ever be revealed. After the 2000 finds appeared, the Bolivian government announced that it would sponsor further research, as well as the development of a special plan to bring the underwater temple to the surface. But so far, at least over the past 13 years, no concrete action has been taken.
Irina Tyurina, RATA-news, Photo by the author