Chavín culture
Sacred spaces: ritual architecture

The overall architecture at Chavín had religious influence and significance. The sacred spaces and structures within this society were evident to have ritualistic and potentially religious purposes. Understanding how the site of Chavin de Huántar is designed allows modern individuals to recognize how the site reflects intentionality of the builders to relay a specific experience. The site was considered to be sensory, meaning that the architectural structure and design elicited a certain feeling through the senses, through sight and touch. It is perception, which is essentially a series of physiological responses. Sacred spaces, such as plazas, were designed to mainly disrupt visual impact, meaning that the sacred architecture was designed to be experienced more so than actually viewed. People who designed and built the architecture at Chavín are understood to be priests or religious leaders within the community. Configuration of the site also emphasizes that there was a presence of high-ranked officials. The architecture within Chavín was dictated by these individuals to keep the ritual elements of their culture prominent. This was done so through the details and formatting of each building, which in essence created the effect that those participating in the ritual were experiencing their religious phenomena. Construction of the sacred ritual spaces was done with a diverse labor pattern and no central authority was controlling the area during its actual construction. The ritual architecture of the Chavín is similar to other Andean coastal architecture.

The earliest architectural forms on the site were plastered, rectangular chambers. One of these later housed the Lanzon. The architecture of the Chavín site allowed for a rich and diverse ritual practice within the ritualized spaces, leading scholars to speculate whether or not the Chavín served as a multi-ethnic ceremonial center; the architecture, materials, and offerings might have been inspired by other cultures, but there is a question as to whether or not it was symbolic of a greater diverse ritual practice. The ritual spaces themselves had a hierarchy, and legitimized and reflected cosmological and social order and structure.

The Chavín buildings and spaces used for ritual were constructed to elicit an experience, and encompassed many of the overall architectural facets described previously. Two of the most well-noted ritual spaces include the Old Temple and New Temple, with a shift to the New Temple as time progressed. Both temples featured pathways and deity worship spaces on the north and south wings. In addition to this, the temples, most notably the Old Temple, had deities carved into stone. The temples were conformed into a U-shaped area, encompassing a circular plaza. The temples featured ceremonial chambers and sacred hearths. Another important structure designed and utilized for ritual included plazas, of which there were many. The Circular Plaza in particular and the Square Plaza were two of the sites primarily focused around ceremonial activity.

Within the Chavín site was a structure which revealed rooms and galleries, speculated by archaeologists to be used as “ritual chambers” for a variety of ceremonies, including what could have been a ceremony surrounding fire. Major use of underground space in the form of stone-lined galleries that are often like labyrinths and run through the monuments’ major platforms and mounds has been speculated to be a center for religious activity where ceremonies occurred in several different contexts involving both audiences and participants.

The open spaces of plazas versus the small restricted spaces of Chavín galleries in the temple shows that there is a progression of how the ritual spaces and architecture was used, moving more from public to private practice. The gallery spaces are central to understanding the implications of the Chavín ritual practices.

In fact, these underground galleries were more than just a place of ritual. As was recently discovered in 2018 by a team of archaeologists led by John Rick, through the use of all-terrain robots, these galleries were the final resting place for, presumably, the temple's builders. The men's bodies weren't buried in a very honorable way: they were face-down, covered by rocks. John Rick raised the possibility, yet to be confirmed, that these people could very well have been sacrificed. This discovery shed some light as to where the people of Chavín buried their dead, although there might be other burial sites, as the director for the excavation said that he doesn't believe it was customary to bury them in those galleries, just that it sometimes happened. If it becomes known, through the study of the remains, that they were indeed sacrificed, it could also serve to prove the theory that the galleries were a place of ritual, but for now, we can only know for sure that it was the final resting place for the men who built the temple.

The sizes of the spaces in the sacred spaces provided different amounts of room for people to congregate. External spaces such as the plazas had the ability to hold more individuals for ritual practices. The Square Plaza could have held 5,200 individuals. The Circular Plaza could have held around 600 individuals. Internal spaces within the temples, for example the galleries or hallways, could have only held a small number. Within the Lanzon gallery in the Old Temple, only around 15 people could have attended a ceremony, and within the canal entries only 2 to 4 people could have witnessed the ceremony.
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