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The site of Tiwanaku was founded about 200 BC, as a small village, and it grew to urban proportions between 300 AD and 500 AD, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes. At its maximum extent, the city covered approximately 6 square kilometers, and had as many as 40,000 inhabitants. Its unique pottery style is found in vast areas covering modern Bolivia, Peru and northen Chile and Argentina. It is difficult to tell, however, whether these areas where part of an empire in the political sense or simply under cultural and commercial influence. Tiwanau collapsed around 1100 AD. The city was abandoned, and its characteristic art style vanished.
The Tiwanaku art style is distinctive, and, together with the related Wari style, defines the Middle Horizon of Andean prehistory . Both of these styles seem to have derived from that of the earlier Pukara culture, centered at the site of Pukara in the northern Titicaca Basin.
"Gateway of the Sun", Tiwanaku, drawn by Ephraim Squire in 1877. The scale is exaggerated in this drawing.
Much of the architecture of the site is in a poor state of preservation, having been subjected to looting and amateur excavations attempting to locate valuables since shortly after Tiwanaku's fall. This destruction continued during 19th century and the early 20th century, and has included quarrying stone for railroad construction and target practice by military personnel. Today Tiwanaku is a UNESCO world heritage site, and is administered by the Bolivian government.
