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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Archaeology of Wak'as: Explorations of the Sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes

The Archaeology of Wak'as: Explorations of the Sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes

Bray, Tamara L.

Paperback

ArchaeologySouth American History

ISBN10: 1607327317
ISBN13: 9781607327318
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: Apr 1 2019
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.45
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
In this edited volume, Andean wak'as-idols, statues, sacred places, images, and oratories-play a central role in understanding Andean social philosophies, cosmologies, materialities, temporalities, and constructions of personhood. Top Andean scholars from a variety of disciplines cross regional, theoretical, and material boundaries in their chapters, offering innovative methods and theoretical frameworks for interpreting the cultural particulars of Andean ontologies and notions of the sacred.

Wak'as were understood as agentive, nonhuman persons within many Andean communities and were fundamental to conceptions of place, alimentation, fertility, identity, and memory and the political construction of ecology and life cycles. The ethnohistoric record indicates that wak'as were thought to speak, hear, and communicate, both among themselves and with humans. In their capacity as nonhuman persons, they shared familial relations with members of the community, for instance, young women were wed to local wak'as made of stone and wak'as had sons and daughters who were identified as the mummified remains of the community's revered ancestors.

Integrating linguistic, ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological data, The Archaeology of Wak'as advances our understanding of the nature and culture of wak'as and contributes to the larger theoretical discussions on the meaning and role of-the sacred in ancient contexts.

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