The Tello Obelisk, a 2.5 meter tall granite monolith carved by the Chavin de Huantar of Northern Peru, National Museum of Archaeology, Lima, Peru
Image details
Contributor:
B.O'Kane / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
2RH73HNFile size:
122.9 MB (8.3 MB Compressed download)Releases:
Model - no | Property - noDo I need a release?Dimensions:
5353 x 8026 px | 45.3 x 68 cm | 17.8 x 26.8 inches | 300dpiDate taken:
9 June 2023Location:
Lima, PeruMore information:
The Chavín culture is an extinct, pre-Columbian civilization, developed in the northern Andean highlands of Peru around 1000 BCE. The Tello Obelisk is a 2.5 meter tall granite monolith carved by the Chavin de Huantar of Northern Peru. It is one of the most intricately complex carvings found in the Americas for its time.It is a rectangular pillar carved in low relief to represent a caiman and covered with Chavín symbolic carvings, such as bands of teeth and animal heads. This is considered to be an object of worship like the Smiling God and Staff God. Carvings found on and around the temple include a cornice of projecting slabs, on the underside of which are carved jaguars, eagles, and snakes, and a number of tenoned heads of men and the Smiling God; they are thought to be decorations or the attendants of gods rather than objects of worship.