page_title: Tiwanaku Empire
section_title: Rise
hierarchical_section_title: Tiwanaku Empire / Rise
context_page_description: The Tiwanaku State was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Tiwanaku was one of the most significant Andean civilizations. Its influence extended into present-day Peru and Chile and lasted from around 550 to 1000 AD. Its capital was the monumental city of Tiwanaku, located at the center of the state's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. This area has clear evidence for large-scale agricultural production on raised fields that probably supported the urban population of the capital. Researchers debate whether these fields were administered by a bureaucratic state or through collaboration of a segmented state or federation with local autonomy. One obsolete theory suggests that Tiwanaku was an expansive military empire, based on comparisons to the later Inca Empire, but supporting evidence is weak.
  Tiwanaku was a multi-cultural "hospitality state" that brought people together to build large monuments, perhaps as part of large religious festivals.
context_section_description: The site of Tiwanaku was founded around 110 AD during the Late Formative Period, when there were a number of growing settlements in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Between 450 and 550 AD, other large settlements were abandoned, leaving Tiwanaku as the pre-eminent center in the region. Beginning around 600 AD its population grew rapidly, probably due to a massive immigration from the surrounding countryside, and large parts of the city were built or remodeled. New and larger carved monoliths were erected, temples were built, and a standardized polychrome pottery style was produced on a massive scale.
  Tiwanaku's influence, most clearly documented by the presence of its decorated ceramics, expanded into the Yungas and influenced many other cultures in Peru, Bolivia, and northern Argentina and Chile. Some statues at Tiwanaku were taken from other regions, where the stones were placed in a subordinate position to the Gods of the Tiwanaku. They displayed the power that their state had over others. Archaeologists have documented Tiwanaku ceramics at a large number of sites in and beyond the Lake Titicaca Basin, attesting to the expansive influence of Tiwanaku symbols and attached messages of power.
  The population grew rapidly between 600 and 800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes. William H. Isbell states that "Tiahuanaco underwent a dramatic transformation between 600 and 700 that established new monumental standards for civic architecture and greatly increased the resident population." Early estimates suggested the city covered approximately 6.5 square kilometers at with 15,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. More recent surveys estimate the site's maximum size between 3.8 and 4.2 square kilometers and a population of 10,000 to 20,000.
  In the rest of the southern Lake Titicaca Basin, hundreds of smaller settlements have been found. Some of the largest and most important were Lukurmata, Qeya Kuntu, Kirawi, Waka Kala, Sonaji, Kala Uyuni, and Khonko Wankane.
caption: Closeup of a carved stone tenon-head embedded in wall of Tiwanaku's Semi-subterranean (Sunken) Temple
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