Opposite the temple a large square 50-metre-sided sunken court was constructed for ceremonial purposes, a feature which would become standard in many subsequent Andean religious sites. The New Temple also contains the 2.5-metre tall Tello Obelisk which shows two caymans and snakes and may represent the creation myth. Its Black and White Portal entrance is flanked on either side by a single column one carries an image of an eagle, the other a hawk representing the female and male respectively in a typical Chavin example of duality. The temple in its new form measured 100 metres in length and reached a height of 16 metres with three stories. These form a transformational series and progressively change from human to jaguar form. 500 BCE), which was actually an extension of the Old Temple complex, is the 100 surviving stone heads which once protruded from the exterior walls. The most striking feature of the New Temple (from c. A second important Chavin deity was the fanged jaguar god, also a popular subject in Chavin art. Another celebrated representation from the same site is the Raimondi Stela, a two-metre high granite slab with the god incised in low relief as a non-gender specific figure with clawed feet, talons, and fangs in an image which can be read in two directions. This half-metre figure represents male and female duality with one hand holding a spondylus shell and the other a strombus shell. Forerunner of the Andean creator god Viracocha, the Staff Deity was associated with agricultural fertility and usually holds a staff in each hand but is also represented in a statue from the New Temple at the Chavin cult site of Chavin de Huantar (see below). One of the most important Chavin gods was the Staff Deity, who is the most likely subject for the famous central figure on the Gateway of the Sun at Tiwanaku. The Chavin religious centre Chavin de Huantar became an important Andean pilgrimage site, and Chavin art was equally influential both with contemporary and later cultures from the Paracas to the Incas, helping to spread Chavin imagery and ideas and establish the first universal Andean belief system. The Chavin civilization flourished between 900 and 200 BCE in the northern and central Andes and was one of the earliest pre- Inca cultures.
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