Arik T. Ohnstad, Vanderbilt University¹

One of the earliest scholarly publications to mention the Khonkho monoliths is El Calendario Maya en la Cultura de Tiahuanacu by Fritz Buck (1937). Buck may in fact have been responsible for the early clandestine excavations at the site which first brought it to public notice (Janusek, this volume), but also participated in the official Comisión de Arqeología's 1937 investigations (Portugal Z. 1941:291). Buck published drawings of three iconographic elements from Monoliths 1 and 2 (Wila Kala and Jinchun Kala), as well as a photograph of the rear of the Jinchun Kala. Buck considered these monuments to be "la prueba mas clara e irrefutable de una influencia... directa de Centro América sobre el grupo cultural del antiguo Perú" (1937:183). Making far-fetched connections between the Wankane iconograpy and Maya glyphic writing, Buck dated the site to about A.D. 500. Viewed absolutely, this date is too late; our radiocarbon series indicates that the occupations associated with stone sculpture date to between A.D. 150 and A.D. 450 (Janusek and Ohnstad 2006). But Buck did consider the Khonkho sculpture to antedate Classic Tiwanaku sculptural styles (1937:187), and in this he proved more correct than some other commentators.

Figure 1: Wila Kala

Maks Portugal Zamora, who as Director of the National Museum of La Paz led the Comisión de Arqueología's excavations in 1937, came to similar conclusions about the chronology of the site, though through study of more localized iconographic relationships. In 1941, he published a number of photographs of the monuments in the Revista Geográfica Americana, describing the sculptures as well as other characteristics of the site. In this article and others, Portugal characterized a number of motifs on the Khonkho monoliths as "primitive" versions of motifs seen in Classic Tiwanaku sculpture (Portugal Z. 1941, 1955). These included the zigzag streamers from the eyes on the central figure of the Wila Kala (see Figure 1), the "condors" on the Portugal Monolith (see Figure 2), the bicephalic serpents (see Figures 1 & 3), and the winged camelid figure on the Jinchun Kala (see Figure 4). Portugal had more to say of the latter figure, suggesting that it was an early version of the ethnographically known "semidioses" Kunt'uri, Wanaku, and Karwoa recognized by modern Aymaras in certain constellations near the Milky Way (Portugal Z. 1941:300, 1955:55).

Figure 2: The Portugal Monolith

Footnotes:

1. This is an English-version of a section of a paper to be published in Nuevos Aportes 5, the online Bolivian archaeology journal, in 2009.