The Opulence of Puma Punku

Puma Punku is a large temple complex located in Tiwanaku, Bolivia. In Aymara, the name Puma Punku means, "The Door of the Cougar." It is situated near the south eastern shore of Lake Titicaca, and sits on a plateau in the Andes at roughly 12,600 feet elevation.

The Temple at Puma Punku within the overall Tiwanaku area around Lake Titicaca included huge megalithic stones like those at Sacsayhuaman above Cuzco 

Puma Punku's construction is generally argued to have taken place beginning around 200 BC. The temple itself stood at least 56 feet tall and took up an area of 164 square feet while the overall site and the surrounding constructions, namely the pyramid, which the ruins sit on, extend over a quarter of a mile in length.

At its peak, Puma Punku is thought to have been unimaginably wondrous, adorned with polished metal plaques, brightly colored ceramic and fabric ornamentation, and trafficked by costumed citizens, elaborately dressed priests and elites decked in exotic jewelry.

Puma Punku was widely known for its opulence in personal adornment as well as extravagant decorations

It is interesting to note the time frame. 200 B.C., close to the time Mosiah I was told to flee out of the city with those who would go with him (Omni 1:12), which he did, and came down into the area of Zarahemla. The Nephites, at the peak of opulence, are repeatedly described as “they began to be exceedingly rich, having abundance of all things whatsoever they stood in need -- an abundance of flocks and herds, and fatlings of every kind, and also abundance of grain, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things, and abundance of silk and fine-twined linen, and all manner of good homely cloth” (Alma 1:2), and “the people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the pride of their eyes, for they began to wear very costly apparel” (Alma 4:6).

No doubt in the City of Nephi, they had reached the level “and their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and silver, and precious stones; yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering, that they might not labor for them with their own hands” (Alma 17:14) as well as “Behold their costly apparel, and their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments of gold, and all their precious things which they are ornamented with; and behold, their hearts are set upon them, and yet they cry unto thee and say -- We thank thee, O God, for we are a chosen people unto thee, while others shall perish" (Alma 31:28).

Gold, silver and precious metals adorned the people and entire city of Puma Punku

Puma Punku, of course, around Lake Titicaca would have been in the midst of the area of the City of Nephi. It is likely what archaeologists have found is the remnants of the area when Mosiah left and the Nephites had reached the peak of their unrighteousness and though we know nothing of what happened to those left in the Land of Nephi, it seems apparent that the Lamanites were not sparing of them when they invaded the area.

Understanding of this complex is limited due to its age, the lack of a written record, and the current deteriorated state of the structures due to looting, stone mining for building stone and railroad ballast and natural weathering. The technological innovation and the beautiful stonework that went into the creation of Puma Punku have drawn comparisons to the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and Easter Island

Determining the age of these ruins has been a focus of researchers since the site's discovery. Currently archaeologists date the beginning of the Tiwanaku culture to some time around 1500 BC, and the construction of the Puma Punku complex to around 200 B.C. However, in the early 1900s, Bolivian engineer Arthur Posnansky, based on astronomical alignments, concluded that Tiwanaku was constructed much earlier, possibly even older than the Tiwanaku. A similar conclusion was given about thirty years later by German astronomers from the University of Bonn; Rolf Muller, Hanns Lundendorff, Friederich Becker, and Arnold Kohlshutter, though subsequent archaeological research has found no physical evidence, including prehistoric tools and dated midden deposits, for any occupation of the Tiwanaku site as old as argued by Posnansky and the German astronomers either at the Tiwanaku Site, near it, or in direct association with the Puma Punku complex, despite decades of intensive excavation and research.

What is known is the opulence of the ancient inhabitants of Puma Punku, and that the architectural achievements seen at Puma Punku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Puma Punku has been a topic of interest since the temple's discovery. The current evidence is that the stones were transported up a steep incline from a quarry near Lake Titicaca roughly 20 miles away. Some of the blocks are said to weigh in the range of 100-130 tons. In fact, one notable block has been measured at 36 feet long, 16 feet wide and 6 feet thick. Several theories have been proposed as to how this labor force transported the stones although these theories remain speculative.

In assembling the walls of Puma Punku, each stone was finely cut to interlock with the surrounding stones and the blocks fit together like a puzzle, forming load-bearing joints without the use of mortar. One common engineering technique involves cutting the top of the lower stone at a certain angle, and placing another stone on top of it which was cut at the same angle. The precision with which these angles have been utilized to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry.

Many of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones, and are so uniformly cut that they could be interchanged for one another while maintaining a level surface and even joints, technology far in advance of the Tiwanaku's Incan successors more than a thousand years later

Tiwanaku engineers were also adept at developing a civic infrastructure at this complex, constructing functional irrigation systems, hydraulic mechanisms, and waterproof sewage lines. To sustain the weight of these massive structures, their architects meticulously created foundations, often fitting stones directly to bedrock or digging precise trenches and carefully filling them with layered sedimentary stones to support large stone blocks. In addition, the engineers developed a system of architectural cramps, composed of a unique copper-arsenic-nickel bronze alloy. These I-shaped cramps were also used on a section of canal found at the base of the Akapana pyramid at the Tiwanaku complex.

These cramps were used to hold the blocks comprising the walls and bottom of stone-line canals that drain sunken courts, and were used to hold together the massive slabs that formed Puma Punku's four large platforms

In the south canal of Puma Punku, the I-shaped cramps were cast in place, in sharp contrast to the cramps used at the Akapana canal, which were fashioned by the cold hammering of copper-arsenic-nickel bronze ingots—an alloy also found in metal artifacts within the region between Tiwanaku and San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, just under 500 miles to the south of Lake Titicaca.