two rivers come together, Chavín is strategically located at
the gathering point of natural forces and was visited and
celebrated in an eff ort to maintain a prosperous balance of
these forces. It was at the center of a pilgrimage network that
extended for over 200 miles in every direction. Th e most sa-
cred and secret place at Chavín is an inner chamber where
hides the so-called Lanzón, a vertical stone in the shape of a
knife depicting a mythical fanged creature. Archaeologists
have found that openings inside the temple were carefully
designed to create sound and light eff ects produced by water
and wind.
In the southern desert coast of Peru hundreds of earth
drawings, or geoglyphs, have been found, created between 200
b.c.e. and 600 c.e. by the Nazca people. Th ese geoglyphs were
created by removing the upper layer of pebbles and revealing
the underlying darker stones. Th eir designs range from straight
lines and geometric shapes to animal representations. Th e gi-
ant drawings can been seen only from the air and are located
away from residential dwellings. Contemporary inheritors of
the Nazca region still walk in processions along straight lines
in the desert. Th eir pilgrimage is meant to symbolically con-
nect water resources from the sea and mountains in this harsh
environment, one of the driest places in the world. Drawings
of monkeys, fi sh, and other exotic animals from the ocean
and the Amazon forest lead scholars to believe that the Nazca
Lines were sacred enclosures celebrating the economic and
natural interdependence of the Andean area.See also architecture; art; astronomy; calendars and
clocks; climate and geography; death and burial
practices; education; festivals; health and disease;
language; mining, quarrying, and salt making; reli-
gion and cosmology; roads and bridges; sports and
recreation; war and conquest.FURTHER READING
Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, Vol.
1, A History (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,
1998).
Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons, and Symbols
of Ancient Mesopotamia (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1992).
Jean Bottero, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, trans. Teresa Laven-
der Fagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, trans. John
Raff an (Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell, 1985).
David Coulson and Alec Campbell, African Rock Art: Paintings and
Engravings on Stone (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001).
Matthew Dillon, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1997).
Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Interpretation (New
York: Dover, 2000).
Manfred Lurker, Th e Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt (London:
Th ames and Hudson, 1995).
Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1973).John Pedley, Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Simon Price and Emily Kearns, eds., Th e Oxford Dictionary of Clas-
sical Myth and Religion, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003).
Stephen Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion (London: British Mu-
seum Press, 1993).
Chris Scarre, Exploring Prehistoric Europe (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford
University Press, 1999).
John W. Stamper, Th e Architecture of Roman Temples: Th e Republic
to the Middle Empire (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
Press, 2005).
Lawrence E. Sullivan, ed., Native Religions and Cultures of Central
and South America (New York: Continuum, 2002).
Richard Townsend, ed., Th e Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred
Landscapes (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1992).
Richard Townsend, ed., Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American
Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (Chicago: Art In-
stitute of Chicago, 2004).
Panos Valavanis, Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece: Olym-
pia, Delphi, Isthmia, Nemea, Athens, trans. David Hardy (Los
Angeles: Getty, 2004).
Greg Woolf, ed., Ancient Civilizations: Th e Illustrated Guide to Be-
lief, Mythology, and Art (San Diego, Calif.: Th under Bay Press,
2005).▶ scandals and corruption
introduction
Bribery, corruption, and scandal were as much the part of the
ancient world as they are of the 21st century—and of the cen-
turies between. One problem historians have in reconstruct-
ing the nature and eff ects of corruption and scandal is that
written records from the ancient world are oft en incomplete
or nonexistent. Without a free press serving as watchdog over
the activities of kings and queens, nobles, civil servants, and
institutions such as churches, no one chronicled these events
objectively. Th e written record in many cases is limited to
royal decrees, letters, legal judgments, and similar docu-
ments—all written from the viewpoint of those in power or
from the viewpoint of their political opponents. Court histo-
rians and similar fi gures in the employ of rulers were paid to
enhance the reputation of their masters, not to expose scan-
dal and corruption. Accounts provided by outsiders and later
historians may have been colored by prejudices, oral legend,
and incomplete information.
Bribery was undoubtedly commonplace in the ancient
world. People struggled to survive and accumulate some
measure of wealth that would secure their old age and give
them something to leave to their heirs. In empires through-
out the world, legions of inspectors, civil servants, tax collec-
tors, surveyors, and other public offi cials were in positions to
accept bribes to allow an illegal activity to go unnoticed, to
modify records in someone’s favor, to alleviate a tax burden,
to extend the boundaries of a person’s property, and so on.908 sacred sites: further reading0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i908 908 10/10/07 2:30:24 PM