Ritual Feting and Religious Conversion in an Ancient Native American Empire

FAIN: RZ-50098-04

University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)
Michael E. Moseley (Project Director: September 2002 to August 2009)

The excavation and interpretation of two Pre-Columbian Andean libation halls in present day Peru to study religious rituals and the transfer of one polity's gods into the pantheon of the other's. (25 months)

Ritual Feting is a two-year project that proposes to undertake archaeological excavations on the mountain summit of Cerro Baul in the heart of the Southern Peruvian Andes. Over one thousand years ago, the summit peak was the religious and ceremonial center of the Wari empire's colony on its southern frontier in the heart of Tiwanaku territory. The research program will assess the archaeological and art historical assemblages in the two most elaborate ritual libation halls on the summit of the mountain peak. The goal is to evaluate the nature of the social order and the co-option of religious ideologies by the summit dwelling elite in their quest to place themselves as the intermediaries between humans and their gods. The project will deliver the material manifestations of this quest and the interpretation of their meanings, disseminated to the local, national, and world communities through museum expositions, an extensive web site, and a graphically-intensive book.