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Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology

Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology

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<< Text Pages >> Temple of the Fox - Ancient Temple in Peru

Submitted by bat400 on Friday, 24 July 2009  Page Views: 11279

Multi-periodSite Name: Temple of the Fox Alternative Name: Buena Vista
Country: Peru
NOTE: This site is 28.997 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Temple
Nearest Town: Lima  Nearest Village: Buena Vista
Latitude: 11.731028S  Longitude: 76.968111W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Ancient Temple in Peru.
A series of rooms within a stone and mud plaster complex near an earthen and stone pyramid. Named for a Fox figure carved within a pictogram of a llama, the site is dated to 2200 BC by carbon dating of bundled twigs found with other items in a ceremonial offering. Astronomical alignments with solstice and equinox sunrises have been determined. There appears to be an alignment with the rising of a constellation known in Inca era (and today) in the Andes as "The Fox".

In folklore of this part of South America the fox is associated with water and planting rituals. These tales are known to have been as old as the Spanish conquest, but evidence from this temple suggests a connection to pre-ceramic cultures. The temple and the alignments were first discovered in 2004, but have received little attention in the popular press until recently. The best summary description of the evidence that this is an intentional alignment can be found in this essay at archaeoastronomy.

The un-named culture who created the temple appears to have intentionally buried buildings within additions to structures, so the rooms and decorative elements have been preserved. The temple is also notable for a 3/4 sized human figure carving represented in 3 dimensions - possibly the earliest example of this type of large, public artwork in the Americas.

Note: See comment on the evidence of what the ancient Peruvians feasted on at the Buena Vista site that includes the Temple of the Fox.
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"Temple of the Fox" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Re: Temple of the Fox by davidmorgan on Monday, 10 December 2018
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The entrance on Street View

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In Peru: evidence from the party that ended 4,000 years ago by bat400 on Friday, 24 July 2009
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Submitted by coldrum ---

The party was over more than 4,000 years ago, but the remnants still remain in the gourds and squashes that served as dishware. For the first time, University of Missouri researchers have studied the residues from gourds and squash artifacts that date back to 2200 B.C. and recovered starch grains from manioc, potato, chili pepper, arrowroot and algarrobo. The starches provide clues about the foods consumed at feasts and document the earliest evidence of the consumption of algarrobo and arrowroot in Peru.

"Archaeological starch grain research allows us to gain a better understanding of how ancient humans used plants, the types of food they ate, and how that food was prepared," said Neil Duncan, doctoral student of anthropology in the MU College of Arts and Science and lead author of the study that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week. "This is the first study to analyze residue from bottle gourd or squash artifacts. Squash and bottle gourds had a variety of uses 4,000 years ago, including being used as dishes, net floats and symbolic containers. Residue analysis can help determine the specific use."

Scientists believe the Buena Vista site, where the starch grains were recovered, served as a small ceremonial center in the central Chillon Valley. The social and ritual use of food is not well understood during this time period in Peru, but this research will enhance the potential for understanding, Duncan said.



The study, "Gourd and squash artifacts yield starch grains of feasting foods from pre-ceramic Peru," is coauthored by Duncan; Deborah Pearsall, professor of anthropology; and Robert Benfer, emeritus professor of anthropology.

For more, including how the starch grains are found and examined, see Eureka Alert.
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Oldest Astronomical Alignments in the New World by bat400 on Tuesday, 22 May 2007
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Submitted by coldrum---

Robert Benfer (University of Missouri) and his team began excavating at Buena Vista in 2002. Two years later they uncovered the site's most notable feature, a ceremonial temple complex about 55 feet long. At the heart of the temple was an offering chamber about six feet deep and six feet wide. It was brimming with layers of partially burned grass; pieces of squash, guava and another native fruit called lucuma; guinea pig; a few mussel shells; and scraps of cotton fabric—all capped by river rocks. Carbon-dated burned twigs from the pit suggest the temple was completed more than 4,200 years ago. It was used until about 3,500 years ago, when these occupants apparently abandoned the settlement.

A few weeks before the end of the excavation season, the archaeologists cleared away rocks from an entrance to the temple and found themselves staring at a mural. It was staring back. A catlike eye was the first thing they saw, and when they exposed the rest of the mural they found that the eye belonged to a fox nestled inside the womb of a llama.

Within days, Duncan spied a prominent rock on a ridge to the east. It lined up with the center of the offering chamber, midway between its front and back openings. The rock appeared to have been shaped into the profile of a face and placed on the ridge. It occurred to Benfer that the temple may have been built to track the movements of the sun and stars.

He and his colleagues consulted astronomer Larry Adkins of Cerritos College in Norwalk, California. Adkins calculated that 4,200 years ago, on the summer solstice, the sun would have risen over the rock when viewed from the temple. And in the hours before dawn on the summer solstice, a starry fox constellation would have risen between two other large rocks that were placed on the same ridge.

Because the fox has been a potent symbol among many indigenous South Americans, representing water and cultivation, Benfer speculates that the temple's fox mural and apparent orientation to the fox constellation are clues to the structure's significance. He proposes that the "Temple of the Fox" functioned as a calendar, and that the people of Buena Vista used the temple to honor the deities and ask for good harvests—or good fishing—on the summer solstice, the beginning of the flooding season of the nearby Chillón River.

The idea of a stone calendar is further supported, the researchers say, by their 2005 discovery near the main temple of a mud plaster sculpture, three feet in diameter, of a frowning face. It resembles the sun, or maybe the moon, and is flanked by two animals, perhaps foxes. The face looks westward, oriented to the location of sunset on the winter solstice.

Other archaeologists are still evaluating the research, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal. But if Benfer is right, the Temple of the Fox is the oldest known structure in the New World used as a calendar.

For his part, Neil Duncan, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, says he maintains "a bit of scientific skepticism" about the temple's function as a calendar, even though, he says, that view supports his side in the debate about early Peruvian civilization. Calendars, after all, "coincide with agricultural societies." And referring to the vegetable-stuffed offering pit, he asks, "Why else would you build such a ceremonial temple and make offerings that were mostly plants?"

For more, including the disagreement between Benfer and Duncan on the origins of Peru's pre-ceramic cultures, see the Smithsonian.
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