CIRCULAR ALTAR OF MINOR PUBLIC BUILDING E2-E3

It was built in the southeastern side of the Minor Public Ceremonial building E2, as an architectural component for private ceremonies, controlled by the building’s users.

USE

Building use for private ceremonial activities. In these ceremonies, conducted around the central fire pit, they burnt offerings related to a deity worship.

Building Technique

They built the circular altar with pebbles and cut stones, joined with mortar made of gray clay and couch grass. They plastered it with yellow and beige clay. The circular fire pit located in the middle of the altar has a 50 cm diameter.

Internal Organization Of The Circular Altar

In the Circular Altar they applied a complex structural design. They made two underground ventilation ducts to drive airflows. Furthermore, they made ducts thinner to produce a Venturi effect, thus intensifying the fire.

Economic aspects

The population of Caral’s urban center during the Initial Formative period lived based on a productive economy with surpluses managed by the settlement’s authorities. Supe residents exploited the resources of one of the planet’s most productive seas and used the valley lands (mostly plain and easy to irrigate) as agricultural fields, which they irrigated with river and spring water. In this areas of differentiated production (fishing in the coastline and agricultural –with a variety of products- in coastline sections, and the lower, medium-lower and medium-higher sections of the valley). They settled towns devoted to specialized production, based on which they developed a complementary (fishing-agricultural) economy, articulated through the exchange between the coastline and valley settlements (Shady 2014: 80).

The work of fishermen and farmers, technological development and exchange supported the economy and the endeavors of several specialists, among them: the authorities in charge of managing the city and its property; representatives leading social groups or lineages and governing each public building; producers of knowledge applied in several fields (astronomy, genetics, agrarian technology, medicine, architectonic constructions, information recording in quipus, music and art); traders of products from several ecological areas and, last but not least, craftsmen devoted to processing and weaving with cotton, reed and totora fiber, as well as to manufacturing mates, wooden artifacts and making beads and personal ornaments with shells, quartz and precious stones (Shady 2006: 61).

Social Aspects

Caral civilization was characterized by a hierarchical social system, related to the political organization and with the specialization of its residents (Shady et al. 2009: 28-30, Shady 2014: 94-95), which resulted in different social classes. There was a centralized organization with political authorities, which forms a state-like social system. Caral’s urban cen-

Political aspects

Caral’s social organization was associated to a political management supported on religious ideology. The population was ruled under this social system. Political authorities of the local and central State governed through the ayllus’ organized social structure –which continued into Inca times- with a vision ter was managed under this socio-political-administrative system, which became more complex over time (Shady 2014: 65). The confluence of domestic units with monumental public buildings for several activities reflects work specialization and the social structure of Caral. of collective ownership of land, water and resources, instead of individual. A collective organization was necessary to live under appropriate conditions in the Andean territory.

This social system, with a strong religious ideology transcended time and space, and many aspects lasted up to the time of the Inca Empire (Shady 2003: 98, 99).

Political authorities of the Supe valley integrated in a single macro system at a State, organized and hierarchized level. Authorities of the urban centers or pachacas; both authorities of the “sayas” (one by each valley bank) and the central authority or “hunu”.