Sunken Courts, Ritual Encounters, and Tiwanaku´s Rise as a Panregional Religious Center

Abstract

Places of ritual encounter have been significant in South American Andean cultures for millennia. In this paper I examine the highland Andean center of Tiwanaku as a place of ritual encounter, focusing on changes in its built ceremonial structures and monuments from the Late Formative (200 BC-AD 500) to the Early Middle Horizon (AD 500-800). Specifically, I focus on changes in the total physical contexts of its sunken courts. Drawing on very recent research on the Late Formative, I conclude that Tiwanaku’s ascendance in the Middle Horizon was in great part its transformation from a local ritual-political center to a panregional urban ceremonial center. This transformation recursively depended on and produced new places of encounter and new types of ritual persons to maintain and visit them.