A Majestic Frontier Outpost Chose Cooperation Over War

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by Patrick Ryan Williams, ndesMichael E. Moseley, & Donna J. Nash The people huddled in their impregnable fortress atop the Ahigh mesa called Cerro Baúl, their last refuge as the mighty Inca legions swept through the valley far below. With its sheer walls and single, tortuous route to the top, the citadel defied attack by storm, so the Inca army laid siege to Cerro Baúl. For 54 days, the people held out. But with little food and no water, they found their redoubt was not only a grand bastion The summit of Cerro Baúl, protected by steep, rugged slopes, provided a virtually impregnable fortress for but also a grand prison. ancient civilizations of the .

SCIENTIFICAMERICANDISCOVERINGARCHAEOLOGY69 hen, in hopes of sav- The Valley had been in the ing their starving orbit until the Wari made their children, the defenders sent bold thrust into the region. To secure the youngsters down from their political outpost, the Wari intruders the beleaguered mountaintop. strategically settled the towering Cerro The Inca received the chil- Baúl and the adjacent pinnacle of Cerro dren with kindness, fed them, Mejia. Unraveling the nature of this and even let them take a few intruding colony and its relationship supplies to their parents with the surrounding Tiwanaku is a long- — along with a promise standing concern of the Asociación Con- of peace and friendship. tisuyo, a consortium of Peruvian and That was enough for the hungry American scholars investigating the and hopeless people of Cerro Baúl. They region. Recent mapping and excavation surrendered unconditionally to the new at Cerro Baúl and adjacent sites are imperial order about A.D. 1475. beginning to reveal pieces of this puzzle. The siege of Cerro Baúl was but the Where the two competing nations final chapter in the legendary history of met, their citizens apparently chose coop- what 500 years earlier had been the south- eration over conflict. Our excavations find ernmost outpost of the Wari, the first of no evidence of warfare during the cen- the great empires of the Andes. The Inca turies (from about A.D. 600 to 1020) in siege was described which the Wari and by Spanish chronicler the Tiwanaku shared Garcilaso de la Vega, the valley and its Archaeologists excavating the summit of Cerro Baúl (the layout and our two seasons scant water. Goods of the once-majestic is shown of excavations at It was, for nearly and ideas almost cer- at right) discovered strong indica- Cerro Baúl lend cre- five centuries, tainly were being - tions of cooperation rather than dence to this histori- exchanged; interac- warfare in the frontier region shared by citizens of the two cal lore. a majestic city tion was inevitable, if empires. Among the evidence is The mesa today is for no other reason this unusual kero (a drinking ves- a sacred mountain, that dominated than to discuss rights sel used in important rituals) that sanctuary of El Señor to the most critical was found at the Wari-empire city de Cerro Baúl, a spirit the frontier. resource of the arid of Cerro Baúl. A hybrid design, it is decorated with elements of that’s widely venerated throughout the desert. Water streaming from mountain both Wari and Tiwanaku cultures, region. But our investigations confirm rainstorms had to pass by a Wari canal and depicts the Staff God, an that it was, for nearly five centuries, a before it reached Tiwanaku fields. important deity for both societies. majestic city that dominated the frontier Furthermore, we recovered a Clearly, the Tiwanaku had some impact on the most important between the Wari and the neighboring Tiwanaku-style kero (a drinking vessel aspect of Wari life — religion. . used in ceremonies) among the Wari’s The story of Cerro Baúl begins in the most sacred ceremonial offerings yet ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF P.R. WILLIAMS time archaeologists call the Middle found at the site — a strong argument for , when the two empires ruled ritual interaction between the two the central Andes. The Wari, secular and groups who shared the valley. The 25-hectare (62-acre) summit of the El Paso Divide between Cerro Baúl militant, governed most of highland and Cerro Baúl — some 600 meters (nearly and Cerro Mejia, where the water course South coastal from their upland capitol at America 2,000 feet) above the valley floor — was split to irrigate expansive terraces that . The Tiwanaku, a trade-based clearly the political and social crown of stairstepped the flanks of both hills. state with a religious core, controlled PERU the Wari outpost. Yet most of the This high-country irrigation system parts of what is now , southern erro Baúl was a bustling city of empire’s citizens lived not on the top, but may be the key to the Wari’s successful Peru, and northern from a capitol one- and two-story houses on terraces cut into less lofty heights. expansion into the extremely arid near . The Moquegua Val- organizedC around plazas where people When the Wari arrived in the valley, Moquegua Sierra, especially during ley, dominated by Cerro Baúl, is the only they introduced an agricultural technolo- severe droughts from A.D. 562 to 594 raised guinea pigs (for food and fuel), Lima place where the two civilizations are prepared feasts, created obsidian projec- gy of terracing steep slopes and digging and from A.D. 650 to 750. known to have come face-to-face. tile points, and made necklace beads of long, serpentine canals across the broken The summit of Cerro Baúl is divided turquoise, lapis lazuli, onyx, and polished Cerro Baúl land. A 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) canal into two areas of very different architec- shell imported from the Pacific coast. wound from the Torata River through ture. A monumental core comprises

70 SCIENTIFICAMERICANDISCOVERINGARCHAEOLOGY ARCHM /APRIL2000 discoveringarchaeology.com one- and two-story masonry build- from the El Paso canal. For construction the sacred center of , an area ings, while the eastern occupation, stone, Wari builders turned to the mesa of sacrifice and propitiation of the gods. The most common architectural form hall was intentionally set, and the beauti- extending to the edge of the mesa itself, quarrying the western half of the At Cerro Baúl, we find at least one and at the capital and other Wari is an ful ceramic vessels, many of them proba- and overlooking the route of ascent, is summit so heavily that it resembles a possibly two of these temples. In our enclosed plaza flanked by impressive bly brought more than 500 miles from the crowded with more modest, one-story cratered lunar landscape. investigations of one of them, several fine stone halls. These halls included resi- Wari capital, were deliberately smashed stone dwellings similar to those found Fine masonry construction was artifacts were found in a ritual offering. dences of governors and wealthy citi- and thrown into the smoldering flames. on the terraces of the slopes. restricted to important buildings that These include entire polychrome ceram- The fire and destruction clearly were Building atop the mesa was a daunting adhered to the strict architectural canons ic vessels, an engraved gourd bowl, and a ceremonial and not a general sacking of task. Earth for mortar and silt for plaster of the imperial capital at Ayacucho. D- silver-alloy foil camelid 2.5 centimeters As part of the the site. As part of the final sacramental came from the banks of the Rio Torata, shaped structures are among the rarest (about an inch) across. final sacramental drinking episode in this hall — perhaps two hours away by foot. Water for mix- and most distinctive buildings at the as part of the abandonment of Cerro ing those materials was hauled uphill political nexus, where they likely were at Baúl itself — Wari priests ceremonially drinking episode, Wari interred the building. The offering of nother potentially important priests ceremonially bead necklaces was made after the fire religious complex at Cerro Baúl had been extinguished. isA the plaza of the sacred stone, an archi- interred the building. tectural compound built around a large boulder at the center of the summit. imilarities in their religious An Intoxicating Ritual Sacred stones were prominent features in zens, government offices, and beer hous- iconography are impressive and A Sacrament of Drunkenness Built Inca cosmology, and a similar structure es for state-held parties that rewarded thesuggestS intimate contact between the has been uncovered near the Wari site of loyalty of important subjects. Wari and Tiwanaku. The Tiwanaku Pikillacta in the Cuzco region. These The most interesting of the long halls Loyalty in the Andes influence on hybrid Wari keros reflects stones were the centers of ritual and that have been excavated so far containedthe incorporation of Tiwanaku ideas in n essential sacra- or condors, as do the Cerro Baúl examples. received offerings of special libations a burnt deposit of classic vessels and keros,the highest realms of Wari religion, and Ament of both the Wari typically portrayed the Staff God on ceramics, (such as maize beer or sacrificial blood) some of which were decorated in a hybridthe existence of a Tiwanaku–style kero Wari and Tiwanaku empires while Tiwanaku preferred stone. And some differences or of sacred items. Common Inca sacrifi- Wari-Tiwanaku style. Six fine necklacesin the most sacred of Wari ritual offerings — and of the fabled Inca who succeeded them — cen- between Wari and Tiwanaku portrayals are notable. cial offerings included , coca were also recovered from this burnt offer-on the summit documents the inclusion tered around , an alcoholic beverage that was Later Wari manifestations, for example, included leaves, gold or silver work, and in ing. Each had an average of 970 shellof Tiwanaku artifacts in Wari religious extreme cases, human children. The mas- beads, some with a few lapis lazuli or imbibed until participants were hopelessly drunk. maize, the basic ingredient of chicha, as part of the ceremonies. sive boulder of Cerro Baúl likely played a chrysocolla tube beads as well. The evi- The drinking rituals were designed to cement rayed appendage. Most Wari representations of the By studying relationships between the similar role. dence suggests the fire that destroyed the relationships between inferiors and superiors within the deity depict bird motifs dropping from the eyes — a Wari and the Tiwanaku, we can observe empire by reducing all parties to a shared state of stag- form referred to as tear bands. The Cerro Baúl exam- how ancient empires communicated with each other. In our own age of inter- gering intoxication. The main pottery forms found at a ples, however, have necks and faces for the tear nationalization and globalization, the ceremoniously destroyed sacred structure at Cerro Baúl bands instead of the common bird design. Perhaps this Andean past may tell us a great deal are large urns and drinking vessels — keros, which element represents Tiwanaku influence, since llamas are about the nature of confrontation were almost certainly used to store and serve chicha, a primary product of their homeland and are between nations and the successes and the intoxicating beverage made from maize. represented on numerous Tiwanaku vessels. failures of strategies of imperial interac- More importantly, a number of the keros bear a An even more convincing argument, though, for ritual tion and control. depiction of the Staff God, or Wiracocha, the principal interaction between Wari and Tiwanaku is the recovery The most powerful deity of both empires Ⅺ deity shared by both Wari and Tiwanaku. This deity is of a Tiwanaku-style kero (pictured above) from the cer- that shared Peru’s portrayed as the centerpiece on the most famous of the emonial deposit in the burned-out ceremonial structure. Moquegua Valley was PATRICK RYAN WILLIAMS is visiting Assistant Tiwanaku empire’s monuments, the Gateway of the Wari keros do not have the sharp, angular base and Wiracocha, the Staff Professor of Anthropology at the University of God.The god usually is Florida. Educated at Northwestern University and Sun. Wiracocha is a defining figure in the link between strongly concave profiles typical of Tiwanaku keros. depicted with a staff in the University of Florida, he has directed the Cerro Tiwanaku and Wari religions. It is the principal deity Wari keros use different color schemes than those found each hand and rays Baúl Excavation Project since 1997. who controls life and death, and its appearance as the on the kero from Cerro Baúl. growing from its head, MICHAEL E. MOSELEY is Professor and Associ- central figure in the religious pantheons of both empires Does this kero represent a Tiwanaku elite who par- as seen here on the famous Gate of the ate Chair of Anthropology at the University of clearly reflects a strong system of shared beliefs. Its pres- ticipated in the most important ritual yet discovered from Florida. Educated at Berkeley and Harvard, he was Sun at the Tiwanaku a founding member of the Asociación Constisuyo ence in this offering is a unique blend of Wari and Cerro Baúl, or does it represent a gift or an emulation capital in Bolivia.Wira- and has conducted archaeological research in the Tiwanaku religious beliefs. of a Tiwanaku ruler? In either case, the inclusion of a cocha determined life Andes for more than 30 years. and death for the peo- The god is usually depicted holding a staff in either significant Tiwanaku artifact in such an essential Wari ple of the Andes. DONNA J. NASH is a doctoral candidate at the hand, with rayed appendages protruding from its head. ceremony certainly reflects the mutual influence University of Florida. She is currently directing The rays often terminate as the heads of stylized pumas between the two great Andean states. Ⅺ PRW excavations at the site of Cerro Mejia and is a Supervising Archaeologist on the Cerro Baúl Exca- vation Project.

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