Word: andean
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...action opened with a burst of scholarly enterprise in February when two grizzled Andean muleteers came down from the mountains near Santiago to report that they had a "mummy" to sell. They had come upon it, they said, while rooting about in a rock-walled enclosure atop 17,712-ft. El Plomo, where one of them had found some silver objects years ago. The mule drivers offered the body to the Museum of Natural History, but demanded 80,000 pesos ($728) for their find. And all that the government gives the museum each year for purchase and preservation of specimens...
...stone throne supported by a carved, crouching man shows the Andean fondness for working the most stubborn materials. It is further demonstrated by photographs of temples near Cuzco, 11,000 feet up. Built during Europe's Dark Ages, the temples were constructed of granite blocks weighing up to 50 tons each. No one knows how the blocks were heaved into place. Even more impressive is the fact that they were matched and fitted so precisely that a knife blade cannot be slipped between them...
Before Pizarro, the Andes have no recorded history. One tribe, the Mochicas, may have developed a system of hieroglyphics similar to the Mayan, but like the Mayan it has never been deciphered. Having no records to go by, archeologists are necessarily vague in categorizing Andean art, but laymen may find a certain poetic fascination in the mere names of the main civilizations: Chavin, Cupisnique, Salinar, Cavernas, Quimbaya, Chanapata, Chiripa, Mochica, Tiahuanaco, Chimu, Chibcha, Inca...
...most surprising things about Andean art is its variety. At various points it seems to relate more to alien cultures than to itself. Shown on the following pages are an early stone puma that resembles nothing so much as an ancient Chinese bronze, a gold figurine that looks like a Javanese puppet, a double-image vessel that prophesies cubism, and a portrait head worthy of Sir Jacob Epstein...
...qualities may be called common to Andean art, they are perfectionism and power-worship. The current exhibition abounds in exquisite craftsmanship, and seldom, outside a zoo, have so many round, staring eyes and sharp, bared fangs been shown in one place...