page_title: Tiwanaku Empire
section_title: Architecture and art
hierarchical_section_title: Tiwanaku Empire / Architecture and art
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.
caption: Ponce stela in the sunken courtyard of the Tiwanaku's Kalasasaya temple
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