Hey there! It just so happens I'm in Tiwanaku at this very moment. There's an awful lot that we do know- far too much to discuss in one instance! The tour guides here are notoriously crap. Yesterday one in the museum went on about their contact with China because of one image of a fellow with narrow eyes.

I can definutely discuss the roles of the various monuments in the city- what are some other specific topics you're interested in so I can grab some sources for you? Art, architecture, politics, timeline, history of the archaeology, clothes, agricultural tech, etc...

Before we begin, let's orient ourselves. Thankfully, Google Maps has all the labels we need- I'll bold the things that appear on the map. In the center we see the modern town of Tiwanaku. The exact spot has been continuously occupied for at least 2000 years, though only now does it house as many people as did at it's ~900 AD peak. To the west we see Lake Winyamarka, the southern segment of Lake Titicaca. To the north is the Taraco mountain range, which extends into the lake as the Taraco peninsula. Opposite this range is the Katari( or Catavi) valley. Separating the Tiwanaku valley and the Jesus de Machaca region to the south is the Kimsi Chata range. Zooming in on the site, we can see the "monumental core." We're most interested in the expansive Kalasasaya platform and the Akapana "pyramid." People call it a pyramid, you won't see me us that term again. Also note the early Semi-subterranean temple, Puma Punku ( to the southwest), and the Putuni, since they will come up. And while we're on terminology, I won't always use "temple" for these structures, instead using the generic "ritual space." This encompasses the political, the religious as dictated by the state, and the religious as practiced by the people- three ideas that interrelate in complex manners. There are religious spaces within domestic ones distinct from the public state religious temples, and the political both appropriates and dictates religion as practiced by the people. I'll first approach how we identify spaces as ritual, and then move onto the more nuanced difference between public state ritual and private ritual practice, i.e. identify them as temples.

Tiwanaku's Monuments: A History

Let's jump backwards about 2000 years. Rome has just become an empire, China is flourishing under the Han, and Tiwanaku... well, people lived there. This period in Bolivian history is called the Late Formative, more specifically the Late Formative I ( LF1, 100 BC-250 AD). There are plenty of thriving centers of trade and culture, e.g. Chiripa on the Taraco peninsula, and Tiwanaku isn't on the road to any of them. Excavations beneath the Kalasasaya in the early '60s uncovered houses typical of a simple agricultural hamlet of the time. Later excavations at the Putuni immediately next to it revealed that the earliest occupation within its footprint was during the Late Formative 2 (LF2, 250-500 AD)- so we're talking a very small hamlet. The LF1 tombs did contain some more elaborate ceramics, which the project director termed "Kalasasaya" style. Later excavations in Taraco and the Katari valley suggest these ceramics had little to do with their namesake and were imported from places that actually mattered.

Sometime around the end of LF1, Tiwanaku starts growing. Circa 250-300, the first monument is built, the Semi-subterranean Temple. It follows the tradition of sunken temples at Chiripa (in Taraco) and Khonko Wankane (in Jesus de Machaca). The Khonko connection is particularly important: the site is precisely south of Tiwanaku and shares much of its iconography in the Formative. As will be discussed later, most of this imagery probably has to do with venerated ancestors, a common thread in Andean history. While this construction indicates it as a center of sorts, it doesn't make it unique.

During the LF2, the Kalasasaya platform is constructed. Through its positioning and similar architecture, it's presented as a continuation of the Sunken Temple tradition. It is built in association with earlier graves, and these graves contain a new "Qeya" style of ceramics. This style is concentrated at the site and is the first that Tiwanaku can call its own. We see further residential growth in the LF2, as noted earlier beneath the Putuni.

The Formative Period ends circa 500 AD. Due to fun and zany wonderland of Andean chronologies, the following era is termed both the Middle Horizon, which only makes sense in Peru since it had a Horizon before that, and the Tiwanaku IV (5-800 AD) and V (8-1100 AD) periods, which only make sense in light of the now abandoned Tiwanaku I & II and slightly less abandoned Tiwanaku III periods. Anyways.... this is when Tiwanaku as we know it comes to be. Between 500 and 600 AD, both the Akapana and the Puma Punku are constructed. These bold monuments are a clear sign of divergence from the old traditions of a regional center. The Akapana stands directly in the way of the sight lines between the Sunken Temple and both Khonko Wankane and the important peaks in the Kimsa Chata range. The earlier monuments use exclusively locally-sourced sandstone, the new constructions employ blocks of volcanic andesite in prominent places. This andesite was quarried across Lake Winyamarka on the extinct volcano Khapia (directly across from Taraco peninsula). Similarly, new monoliths of andesite replaced the LF2 sandstone ones. This is also when characteristic Tiwanaku style ceramics debut. Later in TiwIV, the Kalasasaya gets its new, iconic wall of andesite pillars and the Kheri Kala and Kantatayita are built. Formative constructions continued prior traditions, but Tiwanaku period builders appropriated and replaced the work of their predecessors.

That's Nice But You're Still Calling Them Temples

That I am. And why is that? There are several ways archaeologists assess the use of buildings; we’ll look at two.

Space

When studying a structure with such nice looking masonry as the Kalasasaya, it's easy to get caught up with the walls themselves. That’s important, yes. The big blocks of andesite mean that this is some kind of prominent, elite structure. But equally important is where the walls aren't- the enclosed space. Constructed spaces limit and direct how people interact with each other and the world. A bedroom and an open-air theater are different constructed spaces because the builders wanted to direct the inhabitants of the space differently. You can do the dirty in a theater's audience seats and you can watch the show from upstage center, but the architecture's manipulation of space makes both a bad idea. Conversely, you can't seat 800 spectators in an average bedroom because of the innate properties of matter. At the most basic level, we divide spaces into exclusive and inclusive. Bedrooms exclude through size, walls, and house location (no one's front door opens into their bedroom). Open-air theaters include through, again, size, openness, and ease of access. Now, size doesn't always coordinate like this. An indoor theater and a museum warehouse can be very large spaces, but the series of ticket booths or security checkpoints one must pass through excludes those without permission.

We can also consider the visibility of spaces. In a theater, there is an obvious visual focal point. But there is much more space intentionally inhibited from view- the dressing rooms, orchestra pit, etc. A bedroom might have a window to see outside, but no design elements to increase its own visibility. These factors of size, accessibility, and sight lines greatly inform our analysis of space. Such considerations are more important for complex constructions like those at Chan Chan, but it's good to deconstruct what is otherwise "common sense." (And I wrote a thesis on the social use of space so I have to throw in the lingo somewhere.)

The Kalasasaya is a large open space with a prominent, accessible entrance. Unless you're on the platform yourself, it's difficult to see what's happening on it, but getting on the platform isn’t exactly hard- it’s an inclusive public space. The Akapana is more difficult to access but highly visible. It creates a greater divide between those who observe the space and the actors within it, but any action on the top platform is still fairly inclusive through visibility.

Importantly, these descriptions are not absolute but relative. We have found clearly defined domestic and economic spaces in the city with which we can contrast them. So when you ask “How do we know they’re not palaces?” it’s because we know what contemporaneous palaces looked like. The oft-mentioned Putuni, during Tiw V, has been called a palace; more generically and “properly” it’s an elite residence. Adjacent to the other core monuments, it’s highly visible from the outside, but has a dense network of rooms and patios of exclusive accessibility inside. Surrounding this monumental core is the city itself. Two neighborhoods east of the Akapana, appropriately called Akapana East 1 & 2 (AKE1&2), formed a more “average” residential zone. These houses are arranged around shared open patio spaces, grouped by family or ethnic association and enclosed by a thick boundary wall. These are low visibility spaces with exclusive access. Within these two neighborhoods, and those like them, are small mounds/plazas, equally and easily accessible by all patio groups within AKE, but not accessible without awkwardly passing through these domestic spaces.

Further east is another neighborhood called Ch’iji Jawira (CJ). We know from the artifacts encountered that a lot of ceramic production occurred here. Instead of AKE’s “patio groups,” these ceramicists have more isolated individual houses surrounding a larger open productive space. Again, though, it has an exterior wall and is exclusively accessible. There are similar, though smaller, partitioned productive spaces on top off the Akapana and adjacent to the Kalasasaya, probably the “backstage” for whatever was happening there.