Chavin Religion is the name scholars give to the belief system centred on the oracle sanctuary of Chavin de Huantar in the Peruvian highlands, which flourished from around 900 to 200 BCE and is treated as one of the foundational religious traditions of the ancient Andes. Its iconography, a mixture of feline, serpent and raptor features carved into stone monoliths and worked into gold and ceramic offerings, spread across a wide area of the central Andes through pilgrimage and trade rather than conquest, making it more a shared religious language than a single political empire. The tradition predates the Inca by roughly a millennium and a half and is regarded as a distinct earlier phase of Andean religion rather than an ancestor the Inca directly inherited from.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodChavin de Huantar's sanctuary flourished from around 900 to 200 BCE and the site's own building phases are radiocarbon dated within that span, but archaeologists date the sanctuary's use across a range rather than a single founding year, and ceremonial activity at the site may predate the monumental phase this range describes. 900 BCE is recorded as the conventional early bound of that range, not a settled founding date. Cross-Tradition Connections
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
Spain's own official state film catalogue synopsis is substantially about the priesthood and religious ceremony conducted at Chavin de Huantar, and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre's own record independently names the site a religious centre, making this the first screen work the atlas holds for the tradition.
Sources
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