Soon after Portugal Zamora's 1937 investigations (perhaps in late 1938 or early 1939), Stig Rydén spent time investigating and excavating at Khonkho and nearby sites in the foothills of the Kimsachata range (Rydén 1947). Rydén reprinted a number of Portugal's photographs and drawings of the Khonkho monoliths. However, he reached a different conclusion about the temporal placement of the monoliths from that reached by Portugal. Through detailed comparison with the "Bearded Monolith" discovered by Bennett in the Templete Semisubterraneo at Tiwanaku (see Bennett 1934; Ponce Sangines 2001 [1963]), Rydén argued for the rough contemporaneity of that stela with the Khonkho monuments. Bennett's erroneous dating of the "Bearded Monolith" (Monolith 15 in Ponce's scheme) to the Decadent Tiwanaku (Tiwanaku V) period led Rydén to assign the Khonkho monoliths to this period as well (Rydén 1947:164-166). Some of the very motifs used by Portugal to argue for a pre-Tiwanaku date were thus seen by Rydén as confirming the monolith's later provenance, for example the zigzag eye-streamers and the winged camelid figure.

Figure 3: Monoliths of Khonkho Wankane

The basic conclusions drawn from Rydén's investigations-that Khonkho Wankane was primarily a Tiwanaku center-would hold despite the later reevaluation of the Kalasasaya materials as Late Formative/Tiwanaku III (Ponce 1981), though for different reasons. Thus, Jehan Vellard, Director of the Museo Nacional Tiahuanaco, argued that Khonkho Wankane's cultural affiliations clearly marked as closely affiliated with Classic-period Tiwanaku. As had Rydén, Vellard noted the similarities between the iconography of the Khonkho sculptures and Tiwanaku's early Monolith 15, and went on to argue that the Khonkho iconography was clearly more "evolved" than the "forma primitiva de Tiahuanaco" represented by Monolith 15-and was therefore later in date (Vellard 1955:154). Ponce, working both more intensively and more synthetically, rather inconsistently asserted a definite Tiwanaku III date for Khonkho sculpture (e.g. Ponce 2001 [1963]:119), but continued to view the site of Khonkho Wankane as primarily a secondary city in Tiwanaku's regional state system.

Figure 4: Jinchun Kala