SUN WORSHIP — SPINDEN 



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The southern movement is more dramatic, being documented in the 

 art of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. 

 A striking similarity in subject matter exists between the Jaguar 

 Stairway at Copan and numerous South American monuments. The 

 former shows a sun god's head engaged between Venus symbols, and 

 at either side are rampant jaguars. The date is a round number in 

 the Maya day count corresponding to March 27, A. D, 511, Gregorian 

 calendar, which fell at an inferior conjunction of Venus and the sun 

 in the Maya zodiacal asterism of the Jaguar. Jaguars flanking the 

 sun god, who is himself a jaguar, occur in Peruvian art on the Tiahu- 

 anaco level in combination with sun disks having serpent rays, the 

 latter also a Maya convention (see pis. 5, 6, and figs. 6-9). 



Figure 8. — Bronze plaques of the Calcliaqui culture, area of northwestern Argentina. Two 

 jaguars supporting the sun god. The motive shown here may talie its origin at Copan, 

 Honduras, where the magnificent Jaguar Stairway shows two large rampant jaguars on 

 either side of the stairway, and in the center above, the sun god between two Venus 

 symbols. The monument is part of a dated group. Jaguars guarding the jaguar sun 

 god are common in Peru on pottery, stone lintels, and monolithic statues, where sun 

 disks with serpent and jaguar rays also abound. 



Sun worship was the state religion of the Incas of Peru at the time 

 of the Spanish conquest. Part of the great Coricancha or Sun Temple 

 at Cuzco survives in the Monastery of Santo Domingo. A diagram of 

 the high altar is probably preserved in a drawing of Santa Cruz 

 Pachacuti-yamqui Salcamaja with some explanations of its astronomi- 

 cal details. In this temple were displayed all the dead Incas in jewel- 

 covered mummy bundles either genuine or simulated, together with a 

 golden image of the sun. Of course the Spaniards lost no time in 

 despoiling this cultural center of its negotiable contents. A certain 



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