Hungry buildings of the ancient Andes: art, creation, and bodies

Early monumental architecture in the Central Andes (1400–500 BCE) was striking: large and decorated with impactful images evoking aggression and predation. In this article, I argue that the design and decoration of monumental buildings in ancient coastal Peru may have been seen as acts of creating and activating powerful non-human entities. These animate buildings were designed to become predators that fed on humans during rituals. In the highlands, the artistic effort focused on the creation of stone entities, and ceremonial centers were their home. The religious traditions behind these creative practices disintegrated around 500 BCE, but the legacy of these understandings of ritual space and animacy lasted centuries, influencing aspects of ancestor veneration in later Andean history.