Source: WTL course archives.
Sculpture: A head, about one foot high, carved out of stone, from Chavín de Huántar, Ancash, Perú (1200-600 BCE) in the Museo Nacional de Antropología y Arqueología in Lima.
Comments: This small piece comes from the Chavín culture in the Peruvian Andes. Note that Chavín and Olmec art occur about the same time period (see: <= Olmec Notes). Chavín art shows the following characteristics: symmetry and verticality; repetition of figures within the frame of the larger sculptures; bands with roughly equal width; simplification to the point of geometricality.
Humanities Theme: Compare and contrast this sample of pre-Inca Peruvian art with the sample of Olmec art studied earlier.