Recommended listening: Inti-Illimani 3 - Canto de Pueblos Andinos
Story
A thousand years ago on Lake Titicaca, the Tiwanaku Empire faced its twilight. Just south of the lake stood the mighty city of Tiwanaku which gave the empire its name. In its heyday it was home to tens of thousands, the heart of an empire that covered much of the south central Andes. The people of Tiwanaku were great architects, metalworkers, weavers and farmers, pushing maize cultivation to its environmental limits so that they could drink their beloved chicha in religious ceremonies and daily life. They traded with peoples of the rainforest and people of the mountains. But as the first millennium wound to a close, the glory of their past was slipping away. Rebellion and internal conflict were breaking the empire apart, driving people from great population centres to resettle elsewhere in the wake of factional violence.
In the midst of all this turmoil we find a single pilgrim, an elite woman from Tiwanaku. She has crossed a lake which stands 12,000 feet above sea level to come to the tiny island of Pariti. It is not the first time she has made the journey, but it will be her last. For many years, she and her husband have been coming to Pariti on pilgrimage, partaking in sacred ceremonies and making offerings to the great Staff God and others like him. Pariti is not the only island they visit; their boat takes them also to the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon, whose respective priests and priestesses administer over great shrines.
But this time, something is different. Earlier that day, the pilgrims who came to Pariti held a spectacular ritual feast using the finest ceramics, made specially for the occasion. Among these ceramics were effigy vessels, featuring portraits of the most important men and women in the group which preserved their idiosyncratic facial features as well as their prestigious regalia. Our pilgrim was one of those memorialized, but at the end of the feast, each of these ceramics was ritually smashed. The cracked faces of Tiwanaku's elite were then deposited into a pit and covered up, buried in the ground for the next thousand years. This ritual deposit marked the end of an era. For centuries, Pariti had featured as part of the sacred landscape of Lake Titicaca, drawing pilgrims from all over the empire. But the ceremonial killing of these ceramics was part of a formal farewell to the temple of Pariti. The empire was splintering into pieces just as the pottery was, and it was time for Tiwanaku's elite to move on.
Our pilgrim stands on the shores of Pariti, watching the sunset over Lake Titicaca for the final time. For so much of her life, this little island has served as a place of spiritual refuge. She has poured her heart out to the gods time and time again, offering her innermost hopes and fears up to them in prayer. Now, however, she faces an uncertain future, as the great empire which gave her her status and place in the world crumbles to the ground. She may never return to Pariti, but she has left a piece of herself there forever, packed away into the earth to live on for another thousand years.
In the midst of all this turmoil we find a single pilgrim, an elite woman from Tiwanaku. She has crossed a lake which stands 12,000 feet above sea level to come to the tiny island of Pariti. It is not the first time she has made the journey, but it will be her last. For many years, she and her husband have been coming to Pariti on pilgrimage, partaking in sacred ceremonies and making offerings to the great Staff God and others like him. Pariti is not the only island they visit; their boat takes them also to the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon, whose respective priests and priestesses administer over great shrines.
But this time, something is different. Earlier that day, the pilgrims who came to Pariti held a spectacular ritual feast using the finest ceramics, made specially for the occasion. Among these ceramics were effigy vessels, featuring portraits of the most important men and women in the group which preserved their idiosyncratic facial features as well as their prestigious regalia. Our pilgrim was one of those memorialized, but at the end of the feast, each of these ceramics was ritually smashed. The cracked faces of Tiwanaku's elite were then deposited into a pit and covered up, buried in the ground for the next thousand years. This ritual deposit marked the end of an era. For centuries, Pariti had featured as part of the sacred landscape of Lake Titicaca, drawing pilgrims from all over the empire. But the ceremonial killing of these ceramics was part of a formal farewell to the temple of Pariti. The empire was splintering into pieces just as the pottery was, and it was time for Tiwanaku's elite to move on.
Our pilgrim stands on the shores of Pariti, watching the sunset over Lake Titicaca for the final time. For so much of her life, this little island has served as a place of spiritual refuge. She has poured her heart out to the gods time and time again, offering her innermost hopes and fears up to them in prayer. Now, however, she faces an uncertain future, as the great empire which gave her her status and place in the world crumbles to the ground. She may never return to Pariti, but she has left a piece of herself there forever, packed away into the earth to live on for another thousand years.
Artist's Comments
At long last, an Andean entry in the Women of 1000 series! I have to thank my mother, an expert on the Andes, for pointing me towards Lake Titicaca for research, even if it brought me to Bolivia instead of her beloved Peru! My mom was always going to the Andes for fieldwork while I was growing up, so even though I have never been there myself, the history and aesthetics of the cultures there are embedded deep into my psyche. I was originally going to set this picture on the Island of the Moon, where the Inca later had a very female-centric centre of worship, but when I found out about the female effigy vessels from circa 1000 AD which were found on Pariti less than 15 years ago, there was no turning back! Once I learn more about Tiwanaku religion, though, I might return to Lake Titicaca for a future illustration in the series. And there will be plenty more of the Andes to come, including some more pilgrimage sites, so look forward to that in the future! :)
This illustration actually went really fast once I had the outfit reference, since the pit where the female effigy vessels were found was carbon dated to between 980 and 1025. I found the island on Google Maps, studied some photographs of sunsets, and then let the pencil flow! I used this stock image from SenshiStock as a reference for the hands. Although the colours are different in the scanned version, I'm really happy with how this picture turned out! It was really fun doing a sunset. And finally, finishing this illustration was a fun way to spend my 25th birthday! ~ December 9, 2018
This illustration actually went really fast once I had the outfit reference, since the pit where the female effigy vessels were found was carbon dated to between 980 and 1025. I found the island on Google Maps, studied some photographs of sunsets, and then let the pencil flow! I used this stock image from SenshiStock as a reference for the hands. Although the colours are different in the scanned version, I'm really happy with how this picture turned out! It was really fun doing a sunset. And finally, finishing this illustration was a fun way to spend my 25th birthday! ~ December 9, 2018
Resources
Want to learn more about the women of Tiwanaku? Here are some recommended resources.
Pariti: The Ceremonial Pottery of an Island in Lake Titicaca by Antti Korpisaari and Martti Pärssinen
This book explains in detail the excavations of the Finnish-Bolivian archaeological team from 2003-2006 which unearthed an incredible cache of over 400 smashed ceramic vessels which had been deliberately deposited in two pits on Pariti. Included are many photographs of the objects and in-depth interpretation, which formed the basis of the story behind this illustration. You can also read a summary and see some of the pottery in this article and this article, which also includes some photography of Pariti.
Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes: The Islands of the Sun and Moon by Brian S. Bauer and Charles Stanish
Bauer and Stanish surveyed a great deal of archaeological sites on the Islands of the Sun and Moon, the two most famous pilgrimage destinations in Lake Titicaca, in the 1990s, and they explain their findings in this book. This book is great for showing the long history of human settlement in the lake. Although the book's focus is the later Inca use of the islands, there is lots of valuable material in here about the Tiwanaku period too.
"Identity Negotiation during Tiwanaku State Collapse" by Nicola Sharratt
Sharratt uses burial evidence to hypothesize about how relationships between communities changed with the hostilities of Tiwanaku state collapse. She also highlights some examples of population movement during the decentralization that came at the end of the empire.
"From whorl to cloth: An analysis of textile production in the Tiwanaku provinces" by Sarah I. Baitzel and Paul S. Goldstein
Unlike the male vessels in Pariti, which showed a variety of high status jewellery and other ornaments, the female portraits were unornamented but placed a large emphasis on the shawls the women wore. Textiles have always been of paramount importance in Andean societies, and this article explores the role they played for Tiwanaku women.
"Tiwanaku" by Mark Cartwright in The Ancient History Encyclopedia
If you're looking for an introduction to the Tiwanaku Empire, this article is a good first port of call. It focusses on the city of Tiwanaku itself but also discusses the empire in general. It also highlights some of the other factors in the empire's collapse, such as drought and possible invasions, which I didn't go into in the write-up for this illustration.
Pariti: The Ceremonial Pottery of an Island in Lake Titicaca by Antti Korpisaari and Martti Pärssinen
This book explains in detail the excavations of the Finnish-Bolivian archaeological team from 2003-2006 which unearthed an incredible cache of over 400 smashed ceramic vessels which had been deliberately deposited in two pits on Pariti. Included are many photographs of the objects and in-depth interpretation, which formed the basis of the story behind this illustration. You can also read a summary and see some of the pottery in this article and this article, which also includes some photography of Pariti.
Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes: The Islands of the Sun and Moon by Brian S. Bauer and Charles Stanish
Bauer and Stanish surveyed a great deal of archaeological sites on the Islands of the Sun and Moon, the two most famous pilgrimage destinations in Lake Titicaca, in the 1990s, and they explain their findings in this book. This book is great for showing the long history of human settlement in the lake. Although the book's focus is the later Inca use of the islands, there is lots of valuable material in here about the Tiwanaku period too.
"Identity Negotiation during Tiwanaku State Collapse" by Nicola Sharratt
Sharratt uses burial evidence to hypothesize about how relationships between communities changed with the hostilities of Tiwanaku state collapse. She also highlights some examples of population movement during the decentralization that came at the end of the empire.
"From whorl to cloth: An analysis of textile production in the Tiwanaku provinces" by Sarah I. Baitzel and Paul S. Goldstein
Unlike the male vessels in Pariti, which showed a variety of high status jewellery and other ornaments, the female portraits were unornamented but placed a large emphasis on the shawls the women wore. Textiles have always been of paramount importance in Andean societies, and this article explores the role they played for Tiwanaku women.
"Tiwanaku" by Mark Cartwright in The Ancient History Encyclopedia
If you're looking for an introduction to the Tiwanaku Empire, this article is a good first port of call. It focusses on the city of Tiwanaku itself but also discusses the empire in general. It also highlights some of the other factors in the empire's collapse, such as drought and possible invasions, which I didn't go into in the write-up for this illustration.