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Description
A thousand years ago on Lake Titicaca, the Tiwanaku Empire faced its twilight. Just south of the lake stood the mighty city of Tiwanaku which gave the empire its name. In its heyday it was home to tens of thousands, the heart of an empire that covered much of the south central Andes. The people of Tiwanaku were great architects, metalworkers, weavers and farmers, pushing maize cultivation to its environmental limits so that they could drink their beloved chicha in religious ceremonies and daily life. They traded with peoples of the rainforest and people of the mountains. But as the first millennium wound to a close, the glory of their past was slipping away. Rebellion and internal conflict were breaking the empire apart, driving people from great population centres to resettle elsewhere in the wake of factional violence.

In the midst of all this turmoil we find a single pilgrim, an elite woman from Tiwanaku. She has crossed a lake which stands 12,000 feet above sea level to come to the tiny island of Pariti. It is not the first time she has made the journey, but it will be her last. For many years, she and her husband have been coming to Pariti on pilgrimage, partaking in sacred ceremonies and making offerings to the great Staff God and others like him. Pariti is not the only island they visit; their boat takes them also to the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon, whose respective priests and priestesses administer over great shrines.

But this time, something is different. Earlier that day, the pilgrims who came to Pariti held a spectacular ritual feast using the finest ceramics, made specially for the occasion. Among these ceramics were effigy vessels, featuring portraits of the most important men and women in the group which preserved their idiosyncratic facial features as well as their prestigious regalia. Our pilgrim was one of those memorialized, but at the end of the feast, each of these ceramics was ritually smashed. The cracked faces of Tiwanaku's elite were then deposited into a pit and covered up, buried in the ground for the next thousand years. This ritual deposit marked the end of an era. For centuries, Pariti had featured as part of the sacred landscape of Lake Titicaca, drawing pilgrims from all over the empire. But the ceremonial killing of these ceramics was part of a formal farewell to the temple of Pariti. The empire was splintering into pieces just as the pottery was, and it was time for Tiwanaku's elite to move on.

Our pilgrim stands on the shores of Pariti, watching the sunset over Lake Titicaca for the final time. For so much of her life, this little island has served as a place of spiritual refuge. She has poured her heart out to the gods time and time again, offering her innermost hopes and fears up to them in prayer. Now, however, she faces an uncertain future, as the great empire which gave her her status and place in the world crumbles to the ground. She may never return to Pariti, but she has left a piece of herself there forever, packed away into the earth to live on for another thousand years.

At long last, an Andean entry in the Women of 1000 series! I have to thank my mother , an expert on the Andes, for pointing me towards Lake Titicaca for research, even if it brought me to Bolivia instead of her beloved Peru! My mom was always going to the Andes for fieldwork while I was growing up, so even though I have never been there myself, the history and aesthetics of the cultures there are embedded deep into my psyche. I was originally going to set this picture on the Island of the Moon, where the Inca later had a very female-centric centre of worship, but when I found out about the female effigy vessels from circa 1000 AD which were found on Pariti less than 15 years ago, there was no turning back! Once I learn more about Tiwanaku religion, though, I might return to Lake Titicaca for a future illustration in the series. And there will be plenty more of the Andes to come, including some more pilgrimage sites, so look forward to that in the future!

This illustration actually went really fast once I had the outfit reference, since the pit where the female effigy vessels were found was carbon dated to between 980 and 1025. I found the island on Google Maps , studied some photographs of sunsets, and then let the pencil flow! I used this stock image from SenshiStock as a reference for the hands. Although the colours are different in the scanned version, I'm really happy with how this picture turned out! It was really fun doing a sunset. And finally, finishing this illustration was a fun way to spend my 25th birthday!

Others in the Series
Sei Shōnagon
Oni Oluwo
Princess Olith
Coniupuyara
Sitt al-Mulk and Taqarrub
The Mother of Pueblo Bonito
Gudridr Thorbjarnardottir and Thorbjorgr Litlvolva
The Weaver of Xuenkal
Niguma
Guni
Bonna
The Oneota Messenger
Empress Chengtian
Queen Gurandukht
Mwana Mkisi
Raingarde
Ama
Sahiqat
Jigonsaseh

Want to learn more about women in Tiwanaku and see the pottery that inspired this image? Check out her entry on the Women of 1000 AD website !

Women of 1000 AD 2019 wall calendar on sale now !

Description
A thousand years ago on Lake Titicaca, the Tiwanaku Empire faced its twilight. Just south of the lake stood the mighty city of Tiwanaku which gave the empire its name. In its heyday it was home to tens of thousands, the heart of an empire that covered much of the south central Andes. The people of Tiwanaku were great architects, metalworkers, weavers and farmers, pushing maize cultivation to its environmental limits so that they could drink their beloved chicha in religious ceremonies and daily life. They traded with peoples of the rainforest and people of the mountains. But as the first millennium wound to a close, the glory of their past was slipping away. Rebellion and internal conflict were breaking the empire apart, driving people from great population centres to resettle elsewhere in the wake of factional violence.

In the midst of all this turmoil we find a single pilgrim, an elite woman from Tiwanaku. She has crossed a lake which stands 12,000 feet above sea level to come to the tiny island of Pariti. It is not the first time she has made the journey, but it will be her last. For many years, she and her husband have been coming to Pariti on pilgrimage, partaking in sacred ceremonies and making offerings to the great Staff God and others like him. Pariti is not the only island they visit; their boat takes them also to the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon, whose respective priests and priestesses administer over great shrines.

But this time, something is different. Earlier that day, the pilgrims who came to Pariti held a spectacular ritual feast using the finest ceramics, made specially for the occasion. Among these ceramics were effigy vessels, featuring portraits of the most important men and women in the group which preserved their idiosyncratic facial features as well as their prestigious regalia. Our pilgrim was one of those memorialized, but at the end of the feast, each of these ceramics was ritually smashed. The cracked faces of Tiwanaku's elite were then deposited into a pit and covered up, buried in the ground for the next thousand years. This ritual deposit marked the end of an era. For centuries, Pariti had featured as part of the sacred landscape of Lake Titicaca, drawing pilgrims from all over the empire. But the ceremonial killing of these ceramics was part of a formal farewell to the temple of Pariti. The empire was splintering into pieces just as the pottery was, and it was time for Tiwanaku's elite to move on.

Our pilgrim stands on the shores of Pariti, watching the sunset over Lake Titicaca for the final time. For so much of her life, this little island has served as a place of spiritual refuge. She has poured her heart out to the gods time and time again, offering her innermost hopes and fears up to them in prayer. Now, however, she faces an uncertain future, as the great empire which gave her her status and place in the world crumbles to the ground. She may never return to Pariti, but she has left a piece of herself there forever, packed away into the earth to live on for another thousand years.

At long last, an Andean entry in the Women of 1000 series! I have to thank my mother , an expert on the Andes, for pointing me towards Lake Titicaca for research, even if it brought me to Bolivia instead of her beloved Peru! My mom was always going to the Andes for fieldwork while I was growing up, so even though I have never been there myself, the history and aesthetics of the cultures there are embedded deep into my psyche. I was originally going to set this picture on the Island of the Moon, where the Inca later had a very female-centric centre of worship, but when I found out about the female effigy vessels from circa 1000 AD which were found on Pariti less than 15 years ago, there was no turning back! Once I learn more about Tiwanaku religion, though, I might return to Lake Titicaca for a future illustration in the series. And there will be plenty more of the Andes to come, including some more pilgrimage sites, so look forward to that in the future!

This illustration actually went really fast once I had the outfit reference, since the pit where the female effigy vessels were found was carbon dated to between 980 and 1025. I found the island on Google Maps , studied some photographs of sunsets, and then let the pencil flow! I used this stock image from SenshiStock as a reference for the hands. Although the colours are different in the scanned version, I'm really happy with how this picture turned out! It was really fun doing a sunset. And finally, finishing this illustration was a fun way to spend my 25th birthday!

Others in the Series
Sei Shōnagon
Oni Oluwo
Princess Olith
Coniupuyara
Sitt al-Mulk and Taqarrub
The Mother of Pueblo Bonito
Gudridr Thorbjarnardottir and Thorbjorgr Litlvolva
The Weaver of Xuenkal
Niguma
Guni
Bonna
The Oneota Messenger
Empress Chengtian
Queen Gurandukht
Mwana Mkisi
Raingarde
Ama
Sahiqat
Jigonsaseh

Want to learn more about women in Tiwanaku and see the pottery that inspired this image? Check out her entry on the Women of 1000 AD website !

Women of 1000 AD 2019 wall calendar on sale now !