Wari culture

• 1. Introduction

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  The Wari built their capital 11 kilometers north-east of the modern city of Ayacucho, Peru, and then they walked away from it. Before they left, the people of Wari did something strange. They blocked up the doorways of buildings in the capital and in other government centers, sealing them deliberately, as if they meant to come back. They never did. By 1000 AD the city was dramatically depopulated, occupied only by a small number of descendant groups. The Wari faded from history. This was a civilization that flourished in the south-central Andes and along the coast of modern Peru, from about 500 to 1000 AD, and at its height formed the Wari Empire. Yet it left no written records to explain itself. So how did a people who covered much of the highlands and coast of Peru govern that reach? What did they worship, what did they weave, and why does so much of what survives carry the marks of violence?

• 2. Empire By Increments

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  Around 600 AD, in Peru's Carahuarazo Valley, existing villages began to empty. Archaeological evidence shows the Wari empire taking control of a number of small settlements there during its initial expansion. One village was partially destroyed to make room for a Wari administrative center known as Jincamocco. With the newcomers came a new way of farming. The Wari introduced terracing agriculture to the valley, shifting its staple crops from tubers alone to both tubers and maize. Wari storage structures turned up in the area, seemingly paired with the agricultural sites of some remaining villages, likely used to hold both staple crops. This occupation of the Carahuarazo Valley lasted until roughly 800 AD, after which most of the valley's sites were abandoned. Beyond that single valley, the Wari reached the ancient oracle center of Pachacamac, which they folded into their territory yet left largely autonomous. They later became dominant across much of the land of the earlier Moche and the later Chimu cultures. Why they expanded so far is debated. Scholars have proposed religious conversion, the spread of terrace-farming knowledge, or military conquest. Militarism and its threats have consistently shaped the rise and upkeep of ancient empires, and the Wari were no exception. The clearest evidence of that violence sits in the city of Conchopata, a place the next chapter returns to for what its dead reveal.

• 3. Governing Without Writing

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  The Wari did not appear to keep written records, which leaves their administrative structure largely unknown. In place of writing they used a tool called khipu, a knot record. The khipu is most widely known for its later role in Inca accounting. Yet many scholars believe its earliest use as a recording tool happened among the Wari. To read a civilization that did not write, archaeologists lean on what its buildings and burials say. Homogeneous administrative architecture and clear signs of social stratification help reconstruct a complex sociopolitical hierarchy. In early 2013, an undisturbed royal tomb gave that effort a rare gift. Called El Castillo de Huarmey, it held three royal women surrounded by burial items of striking variety and extent. The wealth packed around them points to a culture able to dominate a significant part of northern coastal Peru for many decades. The dead of Conchopata, about 10 kilometers from the capital, sharpen the picture further. More than 200 individuals have been found there. Before excavation the city was thought to belong to potters, but the burials revealed servants, a middle class, an elite, and perhaps even low kings or governors. A study of a random selection of burials found that 26 percent of adult crania, both male and female, carried at least one posterior wound. Only females showed anterior wounds. That difference in injury by sex is evidence of some systematic hierarchy, a structure written into the bodies rather than onto a page.

• 4. Walls Without Windows

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  Wari administrative centers rose across the provinces during the expansion, yet they often lacked the formal planning that other Andean cities had. Their compounds were large rectangular enclosures with no windows, only a few entries, and no central place for people to gather for rituals or ceremonies. Builders worked mostly in rough fieldstones coated in white plaster. This closed design stands in near-direct contrast with Tiwanaku, regarded by some scholars, such as John W. Janusek, as a more federalized state. Tiwanaku favored an open architectural plan that could easily hold many people at once. One form belonged distinctly to the Wari: the D-shaped structure. These were commonly used as temples and stayed relatively small, only 10 meters across. The reach of these centers extended far past their own walls. Scholars have looked to the Inca to reconstruct parts of Wari architecture. Several Wari provincial sites turned up along the Inca highway system, suggesting the Wari relied on a similar road network. They also built new fields using terraced field technology, a method the Inca later drew inspiration from.

• 5. Feasts And The Staff God

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  In the province of Cotocotuyoc, archaeologists found camelid remains stacked on top of human bones, some bearing no cut marks at all. Researchers read this as deliberate. The animals were not fully eaten, a display of the host's wealth in a process known as ritual wasteful consumption. Remains from multiple Wari sites confirm that feasts and offerings of food were a powerful driving force in social life. Camelids were uncommon in the area around Cotocotuyoc, which made them symbols of social capital. The Wari worshipped the Staff god, a chief deity across many Andean cultures. Some of the oldest depictions of the Staff god appear on Wari textiles and pottery urns estimated to be over 3,000 years old. Some scholars believe the Wari Staff god was a predecessor of the three principal Inca gods: Sun, Moon, and Thunder. Worship also meant sacrifice. In a lineage house at Conchopata, archaeologists found the complete skeleton of a young camelid buried alongside thirty-two guinea pigs. The completeness of the remains and the camelid's age point to sacrifice at the end of the Ayacucho valley's rainy season, timed to the turning of the seasons rather than to any single year.

• 6. Threads And Smashed Vessels

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  Each Wari tunic holds between six and nine miles of thread. The Wari are particularly known for these textiles, preserved by the dry conditions of desert burials. Surviving pieces include tapestries, hats, and tunics for high-ranking officials. Their motifs were standardized, which serves as artistic evidence of state control over elite art production. Many feature highly abstracted versions of typical Andean motifs, such as the Staff God. The abstraction may have served a purpose beyond style. Scholars suggest these designs worked as a mysterious or esoteric code to keep out uninitiated foreign subjects. The geometric distortions may also have made the wearer's chest appear larger, reflecting high rank. The same designs carried over into metalwork and ceramics, both highly sophisticated. The most common metals were silver and copper, though gold Wari artifacts also survive. Metal objects included qiru, bowls, jewelry, mummy bundle masks, mantle pins, and sheet figures that show how the tunics were worn. Ceramics ran to polychrome and frequently depicted food and animals. Conchopata appears to have been the ceramic center of the culture, given its high quantities of pottery tools, firing rooms, pit kilns, potsherds, and ceramic molds. In one of its D-shaped temples, large smashed chicha vessels lay on the floor beside human heads placed as offerings, a form of human sacrifice that ties the loom, the kiln, and the altar into one closed world.

• 7. When The Rains Stopped

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  Centuries of drought began to pull the Wari culture apart around 800 AD. The blocked doorways of the capital and other government centers belong to this unraveling, sealed by people who seemed to expect the rains, and themselves, to return one day. In the meantime the dwindling residents of the Wari cities ceased all major construction. As the state structure collapsed, the violence that had run through Wari life intensified. Archaeological evidence shows significant levels of interpersonal violence, suggesting warfare and raiding increased among rival groups once the state fell apart. The collapse of the Wari marks the beginning of what is called the Late Intermediate Period. One question still hangs over the empire's reach. Scholars continue to debate whether the Wari truly dominated the Central Coast, or whether the polities there were commercial states able to interact with the Wari without being politically ruled by them.