[Aztlan] TIWANAKU RULER'S TOMB AND GOLD TROVE FOUND IN BOLIVIA PYRAMID

[michael ruggeri]





Ancient Ruler's Tomb, Gold Trove Found in Bolivia Pyramid
Kelly Hearn in Buenos Aires, Argentina
for National Geographic News
August 6, 2007

A 1,300-year-old skeleton buried with a cache of gold artifacts has  
been found in a Bolivian pyramid, archaeologists say.

The remains are believed to belong to an elite member of the ancient  
Tiwanaku culture, which thrived on the shores of Lake Titicaca from  
about A.D. 400 to 1200 (see Bolivia map).

Scientists found the bones and offerings this spring in the upper  
reaches of the Akapana pyramid, a heavily looted temple experts say  
is one of the largest pre-Hispanic structures in South America.

The condition of the artifacts and the skeleton's location inside the  
pyramid lead researchers to believe the individual held high status.

"We believe the individual was a priest or a government figure in the  
Tiwanaku civilization," Danilo Villamor Encinas, an official with  
Department of Archaeology of Bolivia, said.

The bones, unlike others found in the pyramid, bear no physical  
markings of having been ritually sacrificed, he said, and the body  
was found near the top of the temple rather than at the base, where  
bones are typically found.

Bolivian archeologists who first announced the find in March said the  
corpse had been buried with a llama, believed to aid in passage to  
the afterlife, as well as a gold headband and a fist-size gold pendant.

Researchers have since found a third gold figurine, Villamor said.

"It is very small figurine of gold with two eyes and a mouth and is  
similar to others found at the site," he said.

Villamor added that the individual—a diminutive 25-year-old male— 
had suffered from malnutrition, perhaps as a child.

"This called our attention, because normally a person that enjoyed a  
high social rank would be well fed and well cared for," he said.

"This leads us to speculate that this individual lived during a time  
of cultural stress where there would have been widespread shortages  
of resources."

Little-Known Civilization

The Tiwanaku civilization arose on the wind-swept high plateaus of  
Bolivia's Altiplano region.

During its height from A.D. 500 to 900, the culture expanded beyond  
its capital city-state to parts of modern-day Argentina, Chile, and  
Peru (see South America map).

For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the civilization  
disappeared before the rise of the Inca and the appearance of Spanish  
conquistadors.

Some scientists have suggested that a drought in 1200 may have caused  
the decline. But other experts dispute the theory.

What is not disputed is the rarity of finding a complete skeleton and  
jewels in the 1,200-year-old pyramid, which experts say has been  
heavily ransacked by looters.

In the early 1900s railway workers also reportedly used the base of  
the pyramid as a stone quarry.

"Finding something intact like this is great considering how looted  
the pyramid is," said Alexei Vranich, a Tiwanaku expert and  
researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology  
and Anthropology.

But he said the recent finding does little to clear up  
archaeologists' fuzzy understanding of the pyramid's role in Tiwanaku  
life.

"In the last year several interesting skeletal finds have come to  
light, but we're still a bit unclear how the pyramid functioned," he  
said.

A 2005 study of remains found near the pyramid by John Verano, a  
forensic anthropologist at Tulane University, supported theories that  
Akapana was a place of human sacrifice, Vranich said.

(Read related story: "Ancient Peru Torture Deaths: Sacrifices or War  
Crimes?" [April 29, 2002].)

"Several of the early skeletons found were clearly sacrificed  
individuals found at the precise location were a shaft of light  
shines out of a temple doorway on the sunset of the day of the  
solstice," Vranich said of Verano's work.

(Verano is the recipient of past grants from National Geographic's  
Committee for Research and Exploration, but the 2005 research was not  
funded by National Geographic Society.)

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