The site appears to have been destroyed by an earthquake, perhaps accompanied by a tidal wave from Lake Titicaca. This block seems to get the most attention, as there is a perfect groove with identically spaced precision-cut 6mm holes drilled along the cut.
More drill holes in what was once a lintel, with extraordinary detail that is just still visible. Stone block with a set of blind holes of complex shape. The numerous H-shaped blocks all match each other with extreme precision and fit into each other like Lego blocks. How Puma punku might have looked. They were initially pounded by stone hammers—which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries—, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand The stones are of mammoth proportion.
Photo credit Based on circumstantial evidences, it can be argued that Puma punku was never built by the Tiwanaku, but by a civilization that was more advanced. Photo credit More drill holes in what was once a lintel, with extraordinary detail that is just still visible.
Photo credit Stone block with a set of blind holes of complex shape. Photo credit Photo credit The numerous H-shaped blocks all match each other with extreme precision and fit into each other like Lego blocks. Photo credit Photo credit How Puma punku might have looked. Photo credit Satellite picture of Puma punku. Bolivia Landmarks Prehistoric. Fortunately, the online collection provides an accessible resource, both virtual and ready to print, while protecting the architecture and reducing the need to travel to the site.
Regardless of motivation or intent, the placement of the shape files online and the easy accessibility of 3D printers mean that scholars and amateurs can print out their own complete collection and find potential refits.
Archaeological sites with a long history of research often have a corpus of incompatible and underutilized documentation and, as a result, research is not cumulative. The stones of the Pumapunku—in particular the sandstone slabs—have been measured, drawn, and published many times over.
The final publication of these graphics result by necessity in a much-reduced version of a larger map that lacks the requisite measurements to test and replicate the documentation.
The online archive preserves all the measurements of the ashlars, and while a future scholar may want to revisit the primary material, the detailed measurements of the architecture is maintained and accessible to them. What is lamentable about the reconstruction efforts for archaeological sites in Bolivia—and also in South America in general—is the lack of open discussion among experts and invested locals in the manner and extent of preservation and reconstruction. Similar to other locations in the Americas where colonization and forced conversion created a break between the present inhabitants and their archaeological heritage [ 56 ], the local people tend to view the value of the site as a place of temporary employment and, up until recently, a convenient quarry thought this is not always the case.
See Liebman for an example from the American southwest [ 57 ]. Under intense political pressure to produce results and start spending the funds for local labor, the site was heavily altered and several blocks were reset in a manner the local archaeologists knew was unsupported by the archaeological evidence.
This research is not the complete solution to bad government and an apathetic public, but it a comprehensible media where various stakeholders can discuss prior to any irrevocable changes to the site.
The use of models is far more comprehensible and more appropriate in this case, in view of the fact that the peoples in the Andes have a long history in the use models to design, plan, and even conceptualize entire landscapes [ 58 ]. This use of engaging models can provide a media for the diverse stakeholders—from experts to indigenous leaders —to openly discuss the extent of the interventions, their relationship to the archaeological data, international convention of conservation, and the effect these issues will have on the visitor experience.
These geometric outlines are recessed from 2. There are a few that appear to be slightly raised. The idea of making miniatures based on field measurements has been entertained before; in fact, one of the first scholars to visit and publish a scientific treatise on the site Alfonse Stubel, made wooden models of some of the blocks. Unfortunately, these models, and any notes or findings, were lost in the allied bombing of Leipzig during WWII. Recently, several scholars and aficionados have taken open source material on the blocks to virtually model and print either as a novelty, or to test a specific idea on the fit of a few of the ashlars.
The original glass plates are stored in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum; the original field notes are in Berlin at the Ibero-American Institute. A 3D model consists of a point cloud, a mesh, and a skin. A point cloud is simply a set of data points in a virtual 3D space—the more points in space, the higher the detail of the model.
A wire mesh takes the point cloud and turns it into a polygonal surface by creating triangles out of the point cloud—the more triangles the higher the resolution. The skin of the model turns the triangles into faces, or polygons. The higher the polygon count, the smoother and more detailed the surface of the model.
A model is considered watertight if there are no missing polygons and the surface of the model has no holes or missing triangles.
Support material is material that is designed to be easily removed after the print, that acts as a kind of scaffolding to ensure a successful print. Although the geometry of the vast majority of parts we worked with did not require support material, it is nonetheless extremely advantageous if it can be at all avoided.
Ostensibly the support material is designed to be easily removed, however in reality it often proves difficult, and can either damage or otherwise alter the surface of the part that it is connected to.
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Tucson: University of Arizona Press; Design for eternity: architectural models from the ancient Americas. Download references. This research project was completely under an agreement between the University of Pennsylvania and thereafter the University of California, Los Angeles and the National Institute of Archaeology of Bolivia.
The Director of Archaeology was Javier Escalante. Alyssa Loorya photographed the 3D models for this publication. The 3D models in. This aspect of the research was carried out with a private donation from Kurt Bost and the Coca Cola Corporation. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.
Correspondence to Alexei Vranich. Reprints and Permissions. Vranich, A. Reconstructing ancient architecture at Tiwanaku, Bolivia: the potential and promise of 3D printing. Herit Sci 6, 65 Download citation. Received : 15 January Currently, the water is at its overflow level.
This level has fluctuated about 5 meters in the past century. During the past 4, years, it has dropped as much as 20 meters during drought periods. The maximum it's ever been is about 7 meters above overflow level, which would still locate the shore many kilometers away from Tiwanaku's suburbs and farms.
Most of these same paranormal sources that refer to Puma Punku as a port also state that the ancient shoreline is still visible along the surrounding hills, albeit tilted at a strange angle. Ancient lake levels are often visible in such a way — they're quite prominent throughout Death Valley where I often visit, for example. But it makes no sense for Lake Titicaca. The lake would spill off the edge of the plain before it could get as high as Tiwanaku; and there's certainly been no tectonic activity in that time that could have tilted the hills, or mysteriously tilted the hills yet left the Tiwanaku structures level.
Finally, one other feature at Puma Punku is said to have the archaeologists baffled: Carved figures, said to represent an elephant relative called a Cuvieronius, and a hoofed mammal called a toxodon.
These both went extinct in the region around 15, years ago, and so some paranormalists have dated Puma Punku to 15, years, apparently based on this alone. When you hear that an elephant is carved there, it certainly does give you pause, because an elephant is hard to mistake. However, when you look at a picture of what's claimed to be the elephant , this becomes less surprising. Tiwanaku art was highly stylized, much like what we're accustomed to seeing from the Maya or the Aztecs.
It's actually the heads of two crested Andean Condors facing each other neck to neck, and their necks and crests constitute what some have compared to the tusks and ears of an elephant's face. The image of the toxodon is known only from rough sketches of a sculpture discovered in , and so it's a drawing of indirect evidence of an artist's interpretation of an unknown subject.
It looks to me like a generic quadruped. Pig, dog, rat, toxodon, name it. So once again, we have an accomplishment by ancient craftsmen whom some paranormalists have attempted to discredit by attributing their work to aliens. This is not only irrational, it's a non-sequitur conclusion to draw from the observations. Most people don't know how to intricately cut stones because those are skills we haven't needed for a long time — we've had easier ways to make better structures for a long time.
But this argument from ignorance — that just because we don't know how to do it, nobody else could have figured it out either — is an insufficient explanation. Simply say that you don't know, instead of invoking aliens. This is not only the truth, it accurately represents the findings of science so far; and perhaps most importantly, it leaves the credit for this wonderful contribution to humanity where it belongs: with the Tiwanaku themselves.
Please contact us with any corrections or feedback. Cite this article: Dunning, B. Skeptoid Media, 20 Apr Baker, P. Janusek, J. New York: Routledge, Pratt, D. David Pratt, 1 Jan.
Tiwanaku: Ancestors of the Inca. Denver: Denver Art Museum, All Rights Reserved. Rights and reuse information. The Skeptoid weekly science podcast is a free public service from Skeptoid Media, a c 3 educational nonprofit. This show is made possible by financial support from listeners like you.
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