Chavín De Huántar
The Lanzon Tunnels
The subterranean passageway-chamber complexes, referred to as galleries, are the most unusual feature of the Chavin de Huantar Temple. The most important complex in the Old Temple is the Lanzon Gallery located in the center of the central wing of the U and is today reached by a doorway to the south of the central staircase. This was not the original entrance and other hidden ones exist. In the center of the chamber leading to a cruciform is a carved granite shaft with a notched upper section. This is a 4.53m tall stone is carved with the image of a fanged anthropomorphic deity. Its top is fitted into a space in the gallery ceiling. Julio C. tello called this sculpture the Lanzon because of its lance-like shape. It has also been suggested that its form is based on the Andean foot-plow, a basic agricultural tool.
The Lanzon faces east alonng the axis of the Old Temple. Its right arm is raised with open palm of the hand exposed and its left arm is lowered with the back of the hand visible. This pose eloquently expresses the role of the deity as a mediator of opposites, a personification of the principle of balance and order. There is a depression on the deity's head which according to Tello may have been used to poor into blood of sacrificed victims from a tunnel above. The sculture is wrapped around the stone so it is never entirely visible from one standpoint nor fully three-dimensional in conception.
Bibliography
Burger,
Richard L., 1992. Chavin and the Origins of Andean Civilization, Thames
and Hudson, London. p.135-137.
Stone-Miller, Rebecca. Art of the Andes: from Chavin to Inca. 1995. Thames and Hudson. NY.