Open To Interpretation
Replicas at Tiwanaku
Moche replicas
Moche Spiral Tower
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There also exist miniature gateways at Pumapunku which are perfect replicas of once standing monumental full-sized gateways.[31] When reducing the full-sized monumental architecture to miniature architecture the Tiahuanacans applied a specific formula.[32] There also exist replicas of larger monumental structures. For example it has been shown that the much-admired carved block known as the "Escritorio del Inca" is an accurate and reduced-scale model of full-scale architecture.[33] Some of these "model stones" like "little Pumapunku" are not isolates stones but, rather, seem to fit in the context of other stones and stone fragments.[34] According to Protzen and Nair the fact that many of these "model stones" were executed in multiple exemplars bespeaks mass production.[35]
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pumapunku
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The precision of the mortarless joints allowed a few blocks to be reunited with their likely neighbors [22]. Architect JP Protzen managed to make several more refits, but one of his more significant was his realization that the much-admired carved block known as the “Escritorio del Inca” (Desk of the Inca, henceforth to as Model Stone 1) was an accurate and reduced-scale model (.5774) of a full-scale architectural form (Fig. 8) [35]. Forming an architectural “Rosetta stone,” the proportions and relations of the carved ornamentation served to justify joining several andesite blocks to form an architectural composition. Though these and several other blocks have been refit, as of yet, we still lack a view of a complete structure. In particular, the relation between the andesite blocks and the sandstone slabs has still to be established. Protzen cautiously suggests that the architectural composition he reassembled may have flanked either side of a gateway.
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Fortunately, one particular refit proved a watershed moment for the reconstruction and serves as an example of the “moment of insight” instant that is facilitated by working with physical 3D objects as opposed to a 2D plan. As previously noted, Model Stone 1 is not an abstraction, but rather a precise .5774 ratio of an actual structure (or portion of a section). Several more fragments of this reduced scale architecture were identified including a miniature gateway and presented graphically as a single façade (Fig. 17).
https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-018-0231-0
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Unlike other Moche burials discovered in the past, Donnan said they found a miniature tomb outside each burial chamber in the pyramid that mimicked the bigger tomb containing the remains.
``These miniature tombs each contained a copper figure that is meant to represent the deceased in the big tomb. That figure is lying on its back with its head toward the south, just as in the big one,'' he said.
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In 2014, the Project’s archaeologists working on Platform 1 came across a unique form of architecture. Though it is portrayed in Moche art, it has no architectural equivalent. It is a raised ceremonial edifice made of adobe bricks, accessed via an ascending spiral ramp. The base was 7.5m in diameter, and it would have stood about 6.5m high. It was built on a platform in the urban centre, halfway between the Huaca de la Luna and its sister-pyramid the Huaca del Sol. The processional ramp spiralled three times around the central core to reach the platform at the top, where there was possibly a canopied throne.
Unfortunately, the remains were badly damaged during investigations in the 1970s, when methods of investigation were less sophisticated, and a team of American archaeologists from Harvard University’s Chan Chan-Moche Valley Project used bulldozers to excavate the site, destroying large sections of this unrecognised architectural feature.
We do not know of other sites where such a structure has been uncovered, but we do know what it would have looked like because there is a ceramic bottle in the Metropolitan Museum in New York that depicts exactly this shape (see illustration on p.20). The vessel is a decorated stirrup-spout bottle, dated to between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and depicts a figure, bedecked in regalia symbolising his elite social status, sitting on a covered throne that is perched at the top of a spiral ramp. The sides of the ramp are decorated with images of fierce felines and sculpted snails that ascend in procession towards the dignitary on high.
Notes: Worser, I'd say!...there's the cupola, again...in fact, I posted pic of that vase when going on about the canopy...Pumapunka means something like Puma Gateway, and brings to mind all those grimacing figures with the Olmec Growl likely depicting hallucinating shamans...in a nearby neighborhood is one of those Peruvian cacti, and it's flowering...very tall, very pretty flowers...remind myself to get pic...anyway, all three of those links outdo themselves...very good stuff..."stuff" in that they don't gloss over things...a sometime is a gathering of the replicas in the Americas...Old World too!
:)
DavidDavid
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