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56-512: The first modern record of someone writing about their finding of the stele was José Toribio Polo in 1871, but his sights at the time were more set on the Lanzón . Two years later in 1873, Antonio Raimondi , an Italian-Peruvian naturalist, visited Chavín de Huantar and described the structure as a "fortress," taking note of the stele in the ceremonial center. As mentioned previously, the Raimondi Stele

112-520: A stone tortoise and crowned with hornless dragons , while the lower-level officials had to be satisfied with steles with plain rounded tops, standing on simple rectangular pedestals. Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of

168-469: A T-shaped symbol. Near the ancient northwestern town of Amud in Somalia , whenever an old site had the prefix Aw in its name (such as the ruins of Awbare and Awbube ), it denoted the final resting place of a local saint. Surveys by A.T. Curle in 1934 on several of these important ruined cities recovered various artefacts , such as pottery and coins , which point to a medieval period of activity at

224-644: A commemorative function or served as boundary markers. Although sometimes plain, most bore a cuneiform inscription that would detail the stele's function or the reasons for its erection. The stele from Van's "western niche" contained annals of the reign of Sarduri II , with events detailed yearly and with each year separated by the phrase "For the God Haldi I accomplished these deeds". Urartian steles are sometimes found reused as Christian Armenian gravestones or as spolia in Armenian churches - Maranci suggests this reuse

280-568: A corpus of post-5th century historical texts engraved sometimes on steles, but more generally on materials such as stone and metal ware found in a wide range of mainland Southeast Asia ( Cambodia , Vietnam , Thailand and Laos ) and relating to the Khmer civilization. The study of Khmer inscriptions is known as Khmer epigraphy . Khmer inscriptions are the only local written sources for the study of ancient Khmer civilization. More than 1,200 Khmer inscriptions of varying length have been collected. There

336-524: A family unit or a household scene. One such notable example is the Stele of Hegeso. Typically grave stelai are made of marble and carved in relief, and like most Ancient Greek sculpture they were vibrantly painted. For more examples of stelai, the Getty Museum's published Catalog of Greek Funerary Sculpture is a valuable resource Steles (Chinese: bēi 碑 ) have been a major medium of stone inscription in China,

392-619: A greater feeling of ferocity. The Lanzón expresses a fundamental motif within Chavín art: the jaguar. These representations vary from realism to stylized anthropomorphism, this particular stella falling under the latter category. The imagery of the jaguar occurs so frequently within Chavín art that it has been hypothesized that they were the foundation for the jaguar cult , worshipping the characteristics of these animals. This depiction of an anthropomorphic jaguar deity lends itself to other cosmological beliefs not just of Chavín but of Andean society as

448-605: A hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala . During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre. Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by

504-420: A jaguar. The being's hair flows in all directions, ending with the heads of snakes. The eyes are stylized, commonly referred to as pendant eyes. The carving is almost perfectly symmetrical except for one hand being raised with the other lowered. Additionally, there is special attention paid to the eyes, nose, lips, and teeth- deeper set carvings for these features make them project, due to the higher relief, it adds

560-674: A large part of Ancient Greek funerary markers in Athens. Regarding stelai (Greek plural of stele), in the period of the Archaic style in Ancient Athens (600 BC) stele often showed certain archetypes of figures, such as the male athlete. Generally their figures were singular, though there are instances of two or more figures from this time period. Moving into the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Greek stelai declined and then rose in popularity again in Athens and evolved to show scenes with multiple figures, often of

616-483: A staff in each hand that also double as Huachuma (or San Pedro) cactus. Spiritual leaders and elite would drink the juice from the San Pedro Cactus that would elicit a hallucinogenic response, allowing them to become closer to the deities that they honored. The eyes of the figure look upward toward his large, elaborate headdress of snakes and volutes. Contour rivalry is found not only in the physical transformation of

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672-532: A whole. Camay, the belief of an object being a conduit for a deity, is particularly significant when considering the function of the Lanzón. Though it was made of terrestrial material, the Lanzón housed a celestial being, the people of Chavín even brought it offerings of food and ceramics. Furthermore, the central image of the Lanzon functions as axis mundi , or pivot linking the heavens, earth and underworld. This concept

728-486: A widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population. The Ming dynasty laws, instituted in the 14th century by its founder the Hongwu Emperor , listed a number of stele types available as status symbols to various ranks of the nobility and officialdom: the top noblemen and mandarins were eligible for steles installed on top of

784-626: Is a granite stela that is associated with the Chavín culture . It is located in the Old Temple of Chavin de Huantar which rests in the central highlands of Peru . The Chavín religion was the first major religious and cultural movement in the Andes mountains, flourishing between 900 and 200 BCE. The Lanzón itself was erected during the Early Horizon period of Andean art circa 500 BCE and takes its name from

840-645: Is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument . The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief , or painted. Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines . Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on

896-437: Is also reflected in the raised and lowered arms, one linked to the celestial and the other linked to the terrestrial. The opposite arms are also reflective of the reverence to duality. Opposites seen in daily life such as night/day, life/death, male/female were considered sacred to create balance. The importance of duality is also seen with the contour rivalry of the snakes and hair, the transformation between man and beast, and

952-474: Is extreme attention paid to maintaining bilateral symmetry, this naturally creates further contour rivalry in all orientations of the Raimondi Stele. A classic response to taking hallucinogens, the Chavin were interested in the interconnectedness of all things. The entire composition utilizes similar forms and line work to represent flora, fauna, and the human. The enter-locking mouth motif, common throughout Chavin art,

1008-598: Is seen on the torso of the figure. The main figure in the image on the Raimondi Stele is the Staff God, an anthropomorphic creature that exhibits human, feline, reptilian, and avian characteristics. The animals represented were highly mythologized and rumored in Andean cultures because of their geographic location. They are all apex predators and lived in the jungles just above the mountain ranges, using their power and prowess to thrive. These characteristics of strength reflect on what

1064-659: Is the Rosetta Stone , which led to the breakthrough allowing Egyptian hieroglyphs to be read. An informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum . Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language . Standing stones ( menhirs ), set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland , were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in

1120-575: The Far East , and, independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Olmec and Maya . The large number of stelae, including inscriptions, surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations, in particular Maya stelae . The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding

1176-458: The First Dynasty of Egypt . These vertical slabs of stone are used as tombstones, for religious usage, and to mark boundaries, and are most commonly made of limestone and sandstone, or harder kinds of stone such as granite or diorite, but wood was also used in later times. Stele fulfilled several functions. There were votive, commemorative, and liminal or boundary stelae, but the largest group

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1232-622: The Iron Age kingdom which existed in the Armenian Highlands of modern Armenia , Turkey and Iran between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Some were located within temple complexes, set within monumental rock-cut niches (such as the niche of the Rock of Van , discovered by Marr and Orbeli in 1916 ), or erected beside tombs. Others stood in isolated positions and, such as the Kelashin Stele , had

1288-528: The Late Stone Age . The Pictish stones of Scotland, often intricately carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Great Britain are specialized steles . Totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones , typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph , are among

1344-547: The Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic ( c.  900 –1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city , at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved. Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in

1400-563: The Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica . They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts or slabs and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered

1456-510: The Merneptah Stele , which features the first known historical mention of the Israelites . In Ptolemaic times (332 - 30 BC), decrees issued by the pharaoh and the priesthood were inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphs, demotic script and Greek, the most famous example of which is the Rosetta Stone . Urartian steles were freestanding stone obelisks that served a variety of purposes, erected in

1512-465: The Spanish word for "lance," an allusion to the shape of the sculpture. The name is deceiving, as its form more closely resembles a highland plow which would have been used for agricultural purposes at the time. It is suspected because of this that the deity depicted is linked to agrarian worship. The Lanzón rests in the heart of Chavín de Huantar. This site at the time was on one of the few passes between

1568-498: The battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Western gravestone (headstone, tombstone, gravestone, or marker) may technically be considered the modern equivalent of ancient stelae, though the term is very rarely applied in this way. Equally, stele-like forms in non-Western cultures may be called by other terms, and the words "stele" and "stelae" are most consistently applied in archaeological contexts to objects from Europe,

1624-814: The clerical script . Chinese steles from before the Tang dynasty are rare: there are a handful from before the Qin dynasty , roughly a dozen from the Western Han , 160 from the Eastern Han , and several hundred from the Wei , Jin , Northern and Southern , and Sui dynasties . During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions ( 墓誌 , mùzhì ) containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones. Erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became

1680-577: The Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text . Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná . Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours. Khmer inscriptions are

1736-568: The ancient Near East and Egypt, China, and sometimes Pre-Columbian America. Steles have also been used to publish laws and decrees, to record a ruler's exploits and honors, to mark sacred territories or mortgaged properties, as territorial markers, as the boundary steles of Akhenaton at Amarna , or to commemorate military victories. They were widely used in the ancient Near East , Mesopotamia , Greece , Egypt , Somalia , Eritrea , Ethiopia , and, most likely independently, in China and elsewhere in

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1792-430: The duality and reciprocal nature of nature, life, and society. The idea of transformation (through flipping a stone structure, making an image out of other images, or taking hallucinogens) is intrinsic to the Chavín cosmology. This theme is found in the art of many other Andean indigenous civilizations. In total, there are 10 sets of eyes, 11 mouths, and 50 snakes within the figure and staffs. As common in Chavin art, there

1848-517: The earliest examples dating from the Qin dynasty . Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative, or edifying text. They can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. In addition to their commemorative value, many Chinese steles are regarded as exemplars of traditional Chinese calligraphic scripts, especially

1904-848: The geographical location between the arid mountain range and the lush amazon. Finally, a key cosmological belief within Andean society as a whole, tinku. This is the concept of multiple parts converging to create something wholly new. The strategic geographic location of the Lanzón is placed at the convergence of the Mosna and Wacheqsa rivers. Piligian, C., et al. (Producers). (2012, February 2). Temple of doom: Peru [Television series episode]. In Ghost Hunters International. Sherman Oaks, CA: Pilgrim Films & Television 9°35′37.14″S 77°10′41.91″W  /  9.5936500°S 77.1783083°W  / -9.5936500; -77.1783083 Stele A stele ( / ˈ s t iː l i / STEE -lee ), from Greek στήλη , stēlē , plural στήλαι stēlai ,

1960-455: The highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea , the Axumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. One of these granite columns is the largest such structure in the world, standing at 90 feet. Additionally, Tiya is one of nine megalithic pillar sites in the central Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. As of 1997, 118 stele were reported in the area. Along with

2016-467: The imagery of an indigenous god and its adornments. Contour rivalry means that the lines in an image can be read in multiple ways, depending on which way the object is being viewed, and in Chavín culture it is often used to enlighten those who can understand the iconography and exclude those who can not. When the Raimondi Stela is viewed one way, the image depicts a fearsome deity, the Staff God, holding

2072-540: The later history by being buried underground for several centuries. Steles created by the Kaifeng Jews in 1489, 1512, and 1663, have survived the repeated flooding of the Yellow River that destroyed their synagogue several times, to tell us something about their world. China's Muslim have a number of steles of considerable antiquity as well, often containing both Chinese and Arabic text. Thousands of steles, surplus to

2128-452: The low relief that the stele was carved in to really observe all that is happening in the imagery. The transformation of the stone object reflects the transformation that the viewers of the Raimondi Stele would so often undergo. The duality shown through double meaning and contour rivalry is indicative of the importance of duality in their everyday lives: night and day, rainy and dry season, life and death, etc. Lanz%C3%B3n The Lanzón

2184-516: The monolith, but also in the iconography. The Staff God's staffs are also vegetation, his belt is also a face, the ears of the face on the belt are snakes, and his headdress is made up of caiman. When flipped upside-down, the same image can be seen differently. The headdress can be "read" as a stacked row of smiling, fanged faces, while the deity's face has turned into the face of a smiling reptile. The deity's staffs also appear to be rows of stacked faces. This technique speaks to larger Andean concerns of

2240-467: The monolith. After excavations done by Julio C. Tello years later, it was confirmed that structures like the Raimondi Stele existed elsewhere on the grounds (the Tello Obelisk, for example) and led to further investigations of the purposes of these monoliths. Chavin artists frequently used the technique of contour rivalry in their art forms, and the Raimondi Stele shows this technique through dualism in

2296-678: The most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin , the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank steles. The memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Egyptian steles (or Stelae, Books of Stone) have been found dating as far back as

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2352-462: The most famous mountain steles is the 13 m (43 ft) high stele at Mount Tai with the personal calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of such stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of China's minority religious communities. The 8th-century Christians of Xi'an left behind the Xi'an Stele , which survived adverse events of

2408-534: The mountainous region of the coast and the dense Amazon. Due to the difficulty of the geography, one must have used these passages. The exposure of Chavín art, such as the Lanzon, to other cultures occurred because of its geographic location. Archaeologists have found textiles which echo the architecture of Chavín and its sculptural artifacts buried as far away as the South Coast in sites such as Karwa, suggesting its influence reached much farther than many other sites at

2464-613: The original requirements, and no longer associated with the person they were erected for or to, have been assembled in Xi'an's Stele Forest Museum , which is a popular tourist attraction. Elsewhere, many unwanted steles can also be found in selected places in Beijing, such as Dong Yue Miao, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Bell Tower, again assembled to attract tourists and also as a means of solving

2520-432: The other image. Because the Staff God is so paramount to the Chavín worldview, the image was made difficult to see to separate those within the community from those outside. The interaction with the stone is not passive, it requires the viewer to become active in the knowing of this deity by either moving their head and body to see the other side, physically lifting the stone to flip the double image, or simply just focusing on

2576-736: The pharaoh, or his senior officials, detailing important events of his reign. Some of the most widely known Egyptian stelae include: the Kamose Stelae, recounting the defeat of the Hyksos ; the Victory Stele , describing the campaigns of the Nubian pharaoh Piye as he reconquered the country; the Restoration Stele of Tutankhamun (1336 - 1327 BC), detailing the religious reforms enacted after the Amarna period; and

2632-405: The present and the afterlife, which allowed the deceased to receive offerings. These were both real and represented by formulae on the false door. Liminal, or boundary, stele were used to mark size and location of fields and the country's borders. Votive stelae were exclusively erected in temples by pilgrims to pay homage to the gods or sacred animals. Commemorative stelae were placed in temples by

2688-548: The problem faced by local authorities of what to do with them. The long, wordy, and detailed inscriptions on these steles are almost impossible to read for most are lightly engraved on white marble in characters only an inch or so in size, thus being difficult to see since the slabs are often 3m or more tall. There are more than 100,000 surviving stone inscriptions in China. However, only approximately 30,000 have been transcribed or had rubbings made, and fewer than those 30,000 have been formally studied. Maya stelae were fashioned by

2744-770: The stelae in the Hadiya Zone, the structures are identified by local residents as Yegragn Dingay or "Gran's stone", in reference to Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad "Gurey" or "Gran"), ruler of the Adal Sultanate . The stelae at Tiya and other areas in central Ethiopia are similar to those on the route between Djibouti City and Loyada in Djibouti . In the latter area, there are a number of anthropomorphic and phallic stelae, which are associated with graves of rectangular shape flanked by vertical slabs. The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, and some of them are adorned with

2800-508: The time. The Lanzón is housed in the central cruciform chamber of a labyrinthine series of underground passages in the Old Temple of the ceremonial and religious center of Chavín de Huantar . Devotees would be led into the maze of pitch-black tunnels, eventually coming face to face with the sculpture. The worshipers' disorientation, in addition to the hallucinogenic effects of the San Pedro cactus they were given before entering, only heightened

2856-399: The visual and psychological impact of the sculpture . The imagery of the Lanzon is a complex series of line work which winds around each of the three sides of its floor to ceiling triangular form. Due to the imagery being divided, one would have to circumambulate the fixture in order to fully observe its design. The Lanzon depicts an anthropomorphic figure with a snarl, claws, and teeth akin to

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2912-515: Was a deliberate desire to capitalize on the potency of the past. Some scholars have suggested Urartian steles may have influenced the development of the Armenian khachkar . Greek funerary markers, especially in Attica, had a long and evolutionary history in Athens. From public and extravagant processional funerals to different types of pottery used to store ashes after cremation, visibility has always been

2968-551: Was an 'explosion' of Khmer epigraphy from the seventh century, with the earliest recorded Khmer stone inscription dating from 612 AD at Angkor Borei . Ogham stones are vertical grave and boundary markers, erected at hundreds of sites in Ireland throughout the first millennium AD, bearing inscriptions in the Primitive Irish language. They have occasionally been described as "steles." The Horn of Africa contains many stelae. In

3024-435: Was not found in situ, but instead in the home of Timoteo Espinoza, a local farmer. According to Raimondi and other accounts of travelers at the time, the local people of Peru would collect and display objects representative of the past in their homes, aligning themselves with the past while also protecting their history. Once the modern world knew about the existence of the stele, Polo returned and focused his 1891/1892 study on

3080-521: Was the tomb stelae. Their picture area showed the owner of the stele, often with his family, and an inscription listed the name and titles of the deceased after a prayer to one, or several, of the gods of the dead and request for offerings. Less frequently, an autobiographical text provided additional information about the individual's life. In the mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2181 BC), stelae functioned as false doors, symbolizing passage between

3136-414: Was thought of the Staff God, considering he was the main deity of the Chavín, showing his all-encompassing power and rule. The duality of the Raimondi Stele is shown throughout the entire structure. The image is perfectly symmetrical, placing an emphasis on the mirroring and double-imaging shown. Part of understanding the stele is in the looking; the whole structure would have to be turned upside down to see

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