Ancient hallucinogenic rites may have involved the use of hidden passageways in the Andes, which date back thousands of years

For the first time in the last three thousand years, hidden tunnels that were utilized by ancient Andean civilization were opened.

Within the ancient Chavin de Huántar temple complex in the Peruvian Andes, archaeologists have discovered a maze-like network of secret corridors and galleries deep within the structure. The investigators believe that the network of rooms and galleries was utilized in religious rites, which may have included the consumption of hallucinogenic chemicals.

This is the first time in approximately 3,000 years that these particular hidden structures have been explored; some of the dark and isolated chambers may have been used for sensory deprivation, while some of the larger galleries appear to have been used for the worship of idols, according to John Rick, an archaeologist from Stanford University who is leading the research.

"These are stone-lined hallways, corridors, rooms, cells, and niches, big enough to walk through and roofed with stone beams," he said in an email to Live Science. "These are the remnants of an ancient underground city." From what we have been able to ascertain, the galleries serve a variety of purposes. However, they are all connected to the ceremonial activity.

Rick said that the recently found passageways were not technically tunnels because the ground had not been excavated to create them. They were instead purposefully designed inside the mass of the massive temple complex as it was being constructed in phases between 1200 B.C. and 200 B.C.

According to what he said, several of the chambers appear to have been initially located quite close to the surface. These rooms were likely kept accessible for some time by utilizing heavy-duty roofing and extending entrance passages. The passageways can be up to 100 meters (300 feet) in length, although the majority of them are winding and have corners with right angles as well as various levels.

Although excavations at Chavin de Huántar have been going on for the past 15 years, a total of 36 galleries and the passageways that connect them have been discovered there. However, the most recent network was only found a few years ago and was not examined until this year, according to Rick.

Ancient temple

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, archaeologists believe that Chavin de Huántar served as a sacred center for the enigmatic Chavin people who resided in the northern and central regions of what is now Peru between 3,200 and 2,200 years ago. Chavin de Huántar was located in what is now Peru. The complex can be found approximately 430 kilometers (270 miles) to the north of Lima. It is situated in a mountain valley at an elevation of more than 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), and it is the largest of the Chavin religious monuments that have been discovered so far.

According to Rick, the most recent tunnels discovered deep within the complex were found for the first time in 2019, and they were initially investigated using a remote-controlled camera.

COVID-19 restrictions prevented further exploration until May of this year, when archaeologists were able to enter the passageways for the first time since they were closed off about 3,000 years ago, he said. This was the first time that they had been accessible since the passageways were sealed off.

The tunnels led to the main gallery that held two enormous stone bowls used in rituals. One of the bowls was decorated with the symbolic head and wings of a condor, which is a big Andean bird of prey. As a consequence of this change, the gallery is currently known as the Condor Gallery.

Rick stated that although they have now recorded the gallery, there is still much more to investigate. The following year will see the beginning of major excavations.

He also mentioned that the gallery was considerably larger than the majority of ones that had been discovered previously and gave off the impression of being much older. "The Condor Gallery displays many lines of evidence pointing to an age of at least 3,000 years since the gallery was erected, and possibly since it was formally shut down," Rick added. "The Condor Gallery also exhibits several lines of evidence pointing to an age of at least 3,000 years."

Religion is shrouded in mystery.

The beliefs of the Chavin are poorly understood. However, it appears that the recently discovered corridors and galleries served a religious function, just like the other chambers that have been unearthed in the past at Chavin de Huántar. According to what we have gathered, the galleries serve a variety of purposes, as Rick pointed out.

According to him, they consist of several smaller chambers that could have been used for rituals involving visual, aural, and tactile disorientation as well as sensory deprivation. Other chambers were used for worship or for storing ritual equipment, such as the famous carved ornamental trumpets made from giant conch shells that were unearthed in large numbers at Chavin de Huántar and that seems to have been used in ceremonies there, according to what he said. These trumpets were found in large numbers at Chavin de Huántar.

Although some corridors and galleries have been identified at religious sites of a comparable date in the Andes, they are often considerably more compact and straightforward — "nothing like the profusion found in Chavin," said Rick.

"The caves beneath the pyramids of Teotihuacan in central Mexico may be the most comparable passages in the New World, but the variances are still striking," Rick said. "However, the similarities end there." "Chavin is essentially one of a kind when it comes to the number and variety of galleries."

According to Richard Burger, an anthropologist and archaeologist at Yale University who specializes in South American prehistory but was not involved in the most recent research at Chavin de Huántar, the two bowls in the Condor Gallery were most likely mortars used to grind up psychedelic drugs for religious ceremonies.

According to what he shared with Live Science, "it was common practice in Chavin to smoke hallucinogenic snuff." He contends that it was crafted from the seed pods of the vilca tree, which are known to contain a potent hallucinogenic compound that is known as dimethyltryptamine or DMT for short.

An anthropologist from the University of Florida named Dan Contreras, who was not involved in the discovery but has worked with Rick at Chavin de Huántar, stated that the most recent tunnels present an unprecedented opportunity for archaeologists to investigate the passageways using innovative methods.

"This one has remained unknown," he stated, indicating that even though the temple complex at Chavn featured multiple networks of corridors that were walled off. "Up until this point, not only had it not been entered, but nobody even knew that it was there," said the narrator. "Nobody even knew that it was there."

According to him, a good number of the passages were probably close to the surface when the complex was first created, but they were blocked off as the structure was elevated over several centuries. The gallery that features a stone monolith close to the gallery's center is one of the most well-known.

According to Contreras, "there is persuasive evidence that this was previously an open plaza." [Case in point] They maintained access to what had been a plaza, even though it had become an enclosed place as a result of the construction of the temple surrounding it.

Article source :https://www.livescience.com/secret-passages-ancient-temple-peruvian-andes

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