The stela of the cactus bearer is a monolith or stele of a single piece of granite, belonging to the Chavín culture of ancient Peru, which remains in its original location on the northwest side of the circular plaza at the archaeological site known as the ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar in the Ancash region of Peru. It was discovered during the 1972 excavation season by Peruvian archaeologist Luis Guillermo Lumbreras.
In 2001, a fragment of another stela was found in the circular plaza showing an exact mirror image of the stela of the cactus bearer. This fragment suggests that there were four stelae with this same representation: two in the northeast quadrant and two in the southeast quadrant, all facing the stairway leading to the gallery of the Lanzón de Chavín.
The importance of this stela lies mainly in the fact that it is the clearest iconographic finding regarding the ancestral and ritual use of the Trichocereus macrogonus cactus in the Andes. The presence of this entheogenic cactus in the Chavín lithic art located in one of the main structures of the ceremonial center has generated several interpretations about the function of the archaeological site.
Location
The stela of the cactus bearer remains at its original location, that is, in the northwest quadrant inside the circular plaza at the archaeological site of Chavín de Huántar. The site is located in the district of the same name, in the province of Huari, in the Ancash region.
The circular plaza is located in front of the building called "B", Old Temple or Ancient Temple. It is semi-sunken with a depth of , has two entrances (to the east and west) and has a diameter of .
The cactus bearer's headstone was found in 1972 along with five other tombstones and it is estimated that in total there must have been 28 stelae of similar dimensions in the north and south quadrants of the west hemicycle of the plaza.
The headstones found in the northwest quadrant show anthropomorphic beings walking as if in a procession, from right to left towards the east staircase, most of them carrying some object in their hands.
Below that row of headstones is another row of rectangular headstones measuring with representations of felines with speckles, also advancing in the same direction as the beings represented in the upper row.
Discovery and chronology
Discovery The headstone was part of the discovery of the circular plaza by the team led by Peruvian archaeologist Luis Guillermo Lumbreras in the 1972 campaign, on November 14, as part of the Chavín Archaeological Research Project carried out between 1966 and 1973.
In 2001, during the excavation season of Stanford University's Chavín de Huántar Archaeological Research and Conservation Program led by archaeologist John W. Rick, a fragment of another stela was found in the circular plaza that shows an exact mirror image of the northwest quadrant cactus bearer stela. This fragment shows most of the individual's left leg, a hanging serpent descending from the individual's belt, and the lower structure of the cactus stem and root.
The evidence found with the 2001 fragment suggests that the top row of headstones were also originally present in the southwest quadrant and that the slabs may have been matched pairs, totaling four stelae with the same representation: two facing right and two facing left, both facing the staircase descending westward from the Lanzón gallery.
Chronology The chronology of the site has been discussed throughout research for several decades. In 1989, Lumbreras placed the beginning of the Chavín culture in 1200 BC. Then, in 2001, according to archaeologist John W. Rick and his team at Stanford University, the archaeological site as a cultural center would have begun its activities around 1500-1300 BC. The latest research in 2019 by archaeologist and anthropologist Richard Burger of Yale University —based accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis of bones obtained at the site— places the beginning of the occupation of Chavín de Huántar in 950 BC.
There is consensus among researchers that the ceremonial center was built over several construction sequences. Some researchers establish three phases (based on radiocarbon dating in ceramic material), like Burger; others four phases and some even five, like Rick. It is after the first construction phases when the circular plaza (with all its headstones), the gallery of the Caracoles, the gallery of the offerings and the east and west access stairs were added to the existing constructions —around 750 B.C.E.
According to Burger's 2019 research, the construction of the circular plaza, its bas-relief headstones (including the cactus bearer stele) and associated galleries were developed in the second building phase called the Chakinani ceramic phase, from 800 to 700 B.C. This Chakinani phase is later than the first building phase called the Urabarriu ceramic phase, from 950 to 800 B.C., and earlier than the later building phase called the Janabarriu ceramic phase, from 700 to 400 B.C.
Description
Context
The stela is located in the circular plaza of the archaeological site, east of the Ancient Temple. This is a semi-sunken plaza with a depth of , a diameter of and two entrances to the west and east. Of the six stelae found, five show anthropomorphic beings walking from right to left towards the east stairway, as if in procession. It is interpreted that they are figures representative of members of the priestly caste of Chavín —including musicians and dancers— that go in procession together with the jaguars (sculpted on the rectangular stelae in the lower frieze) towards the east stairway that leads to the gallery of the Lanzón, where the main stone sculptural representation of the temple is located: the Lanzón or great huanca of Chavín.
Given this area is situated in front of the Lanzón gallery, located in the Ancient Temple, this structure within the archaeological monument was called the 'Lanzón atrium'. The Lanzón atrium includes the circular plaza, the gallery of the Offerings, the gallery of the Caracoles, the east staircase (which goes from the circular plaza to the Lanzón gallery), and the west staircase.
The cactus-bearer stela is considered to be part of a group of headstones engraved and originally located in the plaza: six found in 1972 and another 22 missing, giving a total of 28 headstones (fourteen for the northwest quadrant and fourteen for the southwest quadrant of the plaza). This was calculated on the basis of the dimensions of the stelae and the hemicycle. Next to the cactus bearer stela, catalogued as headstone VI-NW12, the following stelae were found, from left to right: Headstone VI-NW6, in a very eroded state, but an anthropomorphic being can be distinguished in a position towards the front from which "a sort of rays appear to emanate from its four sides". Headstone VI-NW7 ("trumpeter", ''), next to the personage on headstone VI-NW6, represents an anthropomorphic being in profile, walking towards the western stairway (or southwest stairway) holding a conch shell or with their right arm and blowing it. Headstone VI-NW8 ("trumpeter", ''), identical and contiguous to VI-NW7. Headstone VI-NW9, very eroded, a personage in profile in an attitude of walking towards the western staircase with their right arm raised carrying an object (indistinguishable).
Associated with the circular plaza and to the north side of it is the "gallery of the offerings". This gallery was initially excavated in 1966 and 1967 by Lumbreras and his team. They found more than 800 ceramic, stone, bone and shell artifacts, mostly broken. Thousands of broken bones of rodents, deer, camelids, canids, birds, fish and humans were also found. It has been interpreted that the artifacts and bones were placed as offerings in a great ritual event or great supracommunal feast.
Located on the south side of the circular plaza, the gallery of the conch shells was also discovered in 1972. At that time, a large number of large fragments of Titanostrombus galeatus (formerly Strombus galeatus) seashells and Spondylus crassisquama (formerly Spondylus princeps) shells "arranged as if forming a floor", according to Lumbreras. In 2001, in that same gallery, John Rick conducted excavations and found twenty shells (pututu in Quechua) sculpted in bas-relief.
The stela The stela shows an anthropomorphized being with serpent hair, a mouth with fangs or tusks, a belt with a two-headed serpent and claws, who in their right hand holds what appears to be a San Pedro cactus (Trichocereus macrogonus, either var. macrogonus or var. pachanoi) with four veins or striations.
Lumbreras' description of the headstone is as follows:
Identification of the cactus species It has been argued that the cactus depicted on the stela is the entheogenic cactus Echinopsis pachanoi a synonym for Trichocereus macrogonus var. pachanoi. This variety of T. macrogonus, in common with another entheogenic Andean variety, T. macrogonus var. macrogunus is commonly called the San Pedro cactus. Apart from the bearer stela found by Lumbreras in 1972 and the stela fragment found by Rick in 2001, there are also two additional pieces found at Chavín with depictions of cacti: a miniature clava head recovered in 1935: three-veined cactus stems sprout from the eyes of the fanged anthropomorphic being; a ceramic fragment with what appears to be the corona of a four-veined cactus in a Chavín-era midden in the Wacheqsa sector, where the Mosna and Huachecza rivers meet.
From the same period known as the Early Horizon, ceramics and a textile with cactus representations have been found in the regions of Lambayeque and Ica. In sites such as Tembladera and Cupisnique in the Lambayeque region, more than 32 ceramic representations of the San Pedro cactus have been found associated with spotted felines, snakes and birds of prey.
Archaeobotanical remains of the San Pedro cactus have been found. The oldest find corresponds to that of the Guitarrero cave made by archaeologist Thomas F. Lynch in the Callejón de Huaylas, 120 km from Chavín de Huántar, dated to around 10,000 years before present. Archaeologist Rosa Fung Pineda found remains of rolled bark that she assumes from the San Pedro cactus at the archaeological site of Las Aldas on the central coast in the Ancash region, occupied in the period 1200 to 900 BC. In 2016 a group of archaeologists found this time a very well preserved cactus stem of the genus Echinopsis buried at Huaca El Paraíso in the Lima region dated to 2000 BC.
Today, the cactus is the central element in the ritual practices of northern curanderismo, an expression of traditional medicine that takes place in the northwestern part of Peru, in the regions of Cajamarca, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Piura and Tumbes, and in southern Ecuador, in the province of Loja.
Therefore, together with the evidence from ethnohistoric and ethnographic records, in addition to the presence of the cactus in the area in the wild, the researchers agree that the cactus represented on the bearer's stele is a San Pedro cactus, (Trichocereus macrogonus var. macrogonus, syn. Echinopsis peruviana; or T. macrogonus var. pachanoi, syn. Echinopsis pachanoi).
Interpretations It is commonly agreed that the different structures (buildings, plazas, stairways) of the archaeological site at Chavín de Huántar had mainly ceremonial functions and were associated with a religious cult. Thus, the site is known today as the Chavín de Huántar ceremonial center.