Seeing Prehistory in Color: Interpreting the Use of Colored Pigments at the Tiwanaku Omo Temple, Moquegua, Peru

Summary

Although color is often at the background of our lived experience, colors also have the power to demand our attention. In this paper we explore how color was a meaningful component of the built environment in prehistoric South America and specifically the ways it demanded the attention of the Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100) of the south-central Andes. Extensive excavations at the Tiwanaku Omo ceremonial temple (M10A) in Moquegua, Peru have revealed the use of red and green pigments on selective walls and doorways throughout the structure. Using ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological data, we argue that the colors of Omo’s built environment symbolized circulating liquids and guided temple supplicants along a ceremonial procession pathway. We suggest that attention to color is an important avenue for understanding the significance of the built environment and other materials from prehistory.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage