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concept:era ancient

Lanzón Stele (Great Image of Chavín)

Monolithic granite cult sculpture, c. 900–200 BCE, standing 4.53 metres tall in the innermost gallery of the Old Temple at Chavín de Huántar, Peru. The Lanzón (Spanish: 'large lance') depicts a fanged anthropomorphic deity — the principal cult figure of the Chavín Horizon religious complex. In situ; UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor the Andean pre-Columbian cluster with the Lanzón — the central cult object of Chavín de Huántar, the earliest major Andean religious centre.

Notes

  • ·The Lanzón is positioned at the intersection of two underground gallery systems at the heart of the Old Temple (Templo Antiguo) at Chavín de Huántar.
  • ·Its carved imagery combines jaguar fangs, serpentine hair, talon feet, and a cleft skull — a composite supernatural being known in Andean scholarship as the Staff God or Principal Deity of Chavín.
  • ·The Chavín Horizon (c. 900–200 BCE) was a broad Andean religious and trade network centred on Chavín de Huántar; the iconographic style propagated across Peru from coastal to highland regions.
  • ·The site was rediscovered in the colonial period; systematic archaeological excavation began in the 20th century under Julio C. Tello, the founder of Peruvian archaeology.
  • ·Chavín de Huántar was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
  • ·The gallery system (known as 'galleries' or 'labyrinths') was designed to produce sensory disorientation during ritual; sound, light control, and water channels were used as theatrical elements.
  • ·No evidence of permanent removal from the site has been recorded; the Lanzón remains in situ in the Galería de las Lanzas (Gallery of the Lance).