Figures On Gate of The Sun
The lintel is carved with 48 squares surrounding a central figure. Each square represents a character in the form of winged effigy. There are 32 effigies with human faces and 16 with condor's heads. All look to the central figure, whose identity remains an enigma. It is a figure of a man with the head surrounded by 24 linear rays that may represent rays of solar light. The styled staffs held by the figure apparently symbolize thunder and lightning. Some historians and archaeologists believe that the central figure represents the “Sun God” judging by the rays emitted from its head, while others have identified it with the Inca god Viracocha.
Read more about this topic: Gate Of The Sun
Famous quotes containing the words figures, gate and/or sun:
“The human heart concerns us more than the poring into microscopes, and is larger than can be measured by the pompous figures of the astronomer.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Duns at his lordship’s gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had screamed through half the street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees:
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“God went out of me
as if the sea dried up like sandpaper,
as if the sun became a latrine.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)