The Lanzon is the colloquial name for the most important statue of the central deity of the ancient Chavin culture of the central highlands of Peru. The Chavin religion was the first major religious and cultural movement in the Andes mountains, flourishing between 900 and 200 BCE. The Lanzon takes its name from the Spanish word for "lance," an allusion to the shape of the sculpture.
The Lanzon is housed in the central cruciform chamber of a labyrinthine series of underground passages in the Old Temple of the ceremonial and religious center of Chavin de Huantar. Devotees would be led into the maze of pitch-black tunnels, eventually coming face to face with the sculpture's snarling mouth and upturned eyes. The worshipers' disorientation, in addition to the hallucinogenic effects of the San Pedro cactus they were given before entering, only heightened the visual and psychological impact of the sculpture.
The central image of the Lanzon functions as axis mundi, or pivot linking the heavens, earth and underworld. Position within the building also suggests centrality of image.
References
Art of the Andes: From Chavin to Inca by Rebecca Stone-Miller (Thames and Hudson, 1995)
