Tiwanaku

16.5547°S, 68.6737°W.

Tiwanaku in the La Paz Department of Bolivia — capital of the Tiwanaku Empire that controlled the south-central Andes between approximately 500 and 1100 CE, on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca at an elevation of 3,850 metres. The ceremonial centre includes the Akapana stepped pyramid, the Kalasasaya temple platform, the Pumapunku megalithic complex, the semi-subterranean temple, and the Gateway of the Sun monolith. The empire at its peak controlled approximately 600,000 square kilometres from northern Chile through southern Peru and into the Bolivian Altiplano. The Tiwanaku culture is best known for its monumental megalithic architecture using sandstone and andesite blocks fitted with extreme precision — including the H-shaped interlocking joinery at Pumapunku that has no documented parallel anywhere else in pre-Columbian South America. The empire collapsed in the eleventh century during a regional drought; the population dispersed, the language became extinct, and no successor state inherited the architectural techniques. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

The capital of an empire whose engineering legacy ended with its collapse, in a high-altitude ceremonial centre that Inca tradition already remembered as ancient.