Travel And Tour Photos And Pictures

George And Audrey DeLange

The National Museum of the Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru or Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú In Lima Peru: The old colonial mansion housing this museum was the old residence of Peru`s viceroys and then of its Liberators. The Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú is Peru`s biggest museum and it contains both the Estela Raymondi and the Tello Obelisk stones. Which are two very important carved stone pieces dating back to the Formative Period of about 1000 years B.C. It also features the largest textile collection, from the pre-ceramic period through the Inca Empire, and a major collection of Ancient Peruvian metals. The remarkable Tawantinsuyo Room shows the history of about one hundred years of the Inca Empire by using virtual models and re-creations. The Chavin Horizon Culture generally had a peaceful way of life which was a major influence upon the other cultures of northern Peru. Their ruins are generally not the giant structures with incredible carvings as other cultures are known for. The real marvel of the Chavin is the complex network of underground tunnels and chambers, at their major ruins and the fact that they were built almost 3,000 years ago using stone tools. One such ruins called Lanzon de Templo Viaje is made of stone blocks that were cut and fit with such precision that would be difficult to equal it today with modern power tools. It has a main plaza that is a perfect square of about an acre, and it has a one-meter incline with a system of drainage tunnels so that it will not flood. The whole temple complex is aligned, from north to south, with a line running from the main temple entrance through the plaza, dividing it into the four directions. Above the plaza rises the temple, a three-tiered square that is flat on top and still amazingly intact considering its age. There is another smaller, ceremonial plaza next to the temple, but this one is remarkable for its perfect roundness. There are several different types of tunnels in the underground temple making up a complicated maze of galleries, water-tunnels and passages. The Tello Obelisk from that ruins is now in the National Museum of the Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru. We have photos of it on this page. Another well-known archaeological ruin of the Chavín era is called Chavín de Huántar, located in the Andean highlands just north of Lima. It is believed to have been built around 900 BCE. The ruins of Chavín de Huántar stretch along the banks of the Mosna River. They are large terraced pyramid platforms faced with stone slabs and riddled with stone-lined galleries and rooms which are grouped around a sunken plaza. A famous stela from there is called the Raimondi Stela. It is named after an Italian traveler, Antonio Raimondi, who found the stela in the hut of a peasant in Callejon de Conchucos in 1874. The stela is carved in the image of a god, possibly the main god worshiped in the new temple of Chavín de Huántar. It contains a figure known as the "Staff Bearing God" which covers only the bottom 1/3 of the stela. The upper 2/3 is made up of a head dress. The Chavín artists made use of the technique of contour rivalry in their art forms, the Raimondi Stela is considered to be one of the finest known examples of this technique. Contour rivalry means that the lines in an image can be read in many ways, depending on which way the object is being observed. When the Raimondi Stela is viewed one way, the image depicts a fearsome god holding two staffs. His eyes look upward toward his large, headdress of snakes and volutes. This same image, when flipped over, now turns into a stacked row of smiling, fanged faces. The god's face has turned into the face of a smiling reptile. The god's staffs now appear to be rows of stacked faces. The Raimondi Stela is also located in the National Museum of the Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru. The Chavín Shaman used the San Pedro Cactus ( Trichocereus pachanoi ) in many of their rituals since the cactus contains the hallucinogenic alkaloid mescalin. We will show many other objects on display at the museum without much comment as to what the actual pieces are since it was not noted at the museum. Of course there were so many objects that we can not show them all. We were at the National Museum of the Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru on April 11, 2006 at about 1:00 PM.