Visions of Tiwanaku


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Series: Monographs 78
ISBN: 978-0-917956-09-6
Publication Date: Dec 2013
Price: Hb $75, eBook $30
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Alexei Vranich and Charles Stanish

“What was Tiwanaku?” This question was posed to a select group of scholars that gathered for an intensive two-day conference at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. For over half a millennium, the megalithic ruins in the highlands of the Andes mountains have stood as proxy for the desires and ambitions of various empires and political agendas; in the last hundred years, scholars have attempted to answer this question by interpreting the shattered remains from a distant preliterate past. The conference pooled the decades of experience of a dozen leading scholars together with the recent field data of junior scholars (published separately in Volumes 2 and 3 of Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology). For over half a millennium, the megalithic ruins of Tiwanaku in the highlands of the Andes mountains have stood as proxy for the desires and ambitions of various empires and political agendas; in the last hundred years, scholars have attempted to answer the question “What was Tiwanaku?” by examining these shattered remains from a distant preliterate past. This volume contains twelve papers from senior scholars, whose contributions discuss subjects from the farthest points of the southern Andes, where the iconic artifacts of Tiwanaku appear as offerings to the departed, to the heralded ruins weathered by time and burdened by centuries of interpretation and speculation. Visions of Tiwanaku stays true to its name by providing a platform for each scholar to present an informed view on the nature of this enigmatic place that seems so familiar, yet continues to elude understanding by falling outside our established models for early cities and states.
Table of Contents

Preface by Alexei Vranich
Chapter 1. Visions of Tiwanaku by Alexei Vranich
Chapter 2. Stylistic Variation and Seriation by Michael Moseley
Chapter 3. Tiwanaku: A Cult of the Masses by Patrick Ryan Williams
Chapter 4. Tiwanaku and Wari State Expansion: Demographic and Outpost Colonization Compared by Paul Goldstein
Chapter 5. The Cultural Implications of Tiwanaku and Huari Textiles by William J Conklin
Chapter 6. Tiwanaku Influence on the Central Valley of Cochabamba by Karen Anderson
Chapter 7. Tiwanaku Ritual and Political Transformations in the Core and Peripheries by Matthew T. Seddon
Chapter 8. Tiwanaku Origins and the Early Development: The Political and Moral Economy of a Hospitality State by Matthew Bandy
Chapter 9. What Was Tiwanaku? by Charles Stanish
Chapter 10. Nature of an Andean City: Tiwanaku and the Production of Spectacle by William H. Isbell
Chapter 11. Social Diversity, Ritual Encounter, and the Contingent Production of Tiwanaku by John W. Janusek
Chapter 12. Tiwanaku’s Coming of Age: Refining Time and Style in the Altiplano by Patricia J. Knobloch
Chapter 13. Concluding Thoughts by Alexei Vranich