Atacama Giant
Gigante de Atacama
Interesting facts
- Chilean heritage authorities give the figure a height of about 86 metres and an area of some 3,000 square metres, smaller than the widely quoted 119 metres.
- In Chile it is better known as the Gigante de Tarapacá, the Giant of Tarapacá, after the region in which Cerro Unita stands.
- It was first noticed from the air in 1967, on a survey flight by Eduardo Iensen Franke with the archaeologists Lautaro Núñez and Delbert True aboard.
- Some scholars see in it Tunupa, an Andean deity who, according to colonial chronicles, wandered from Lake Titicaca all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
- The giant shares the western slope with seven geometric figures of 100 to 200 square metres each, while a second panel on the southern slope holds thirteen more.
- It is one of nearly 5,000 geoglyphs recorded across the Atacama region, the work of several cultures that succeeded each other over centuries.
- In January 2019 a pickup truck drove onto the hill and left tyre tracks that archaeologists warned could never be fully erased from the fragile desert surface.
Why it is worth it
The Atacama Giant is a human figure laid out on the western slope of Cerro Unita, an isolated hill rising from the pampa of the Tarapacá region in northern Chile. It is usually described as the largest prehistoric anthropomorphic geoglyph known anywhere, with published heights ranging from about 86 to 119 metres, and its drawing is disarmingly simple: a squarish head, a rectangular body, long stiff legs and short arms. What makes it unforgettable are the lines that spring from the head, four from the crown and four from each side, like a headdress of rays, all spread across a bare brown hillside with nothing else in sight but desert.
The figure was made by a mixed technique common in this part of the Andes: dark stones were cleared and heaped to form outlines, and the lighter ground beneath was exposed by scraping, so the image reads as a contrast of tones rather than a trench. It is generally dated to between about 1000 and 1400 AD and attributed to the peoples who lived in the region before the arrival of the Inca. It came to wider attention after it was spotted from the air in 1967 during an archaeological survey flight.
Its meaning remains open. Many see in it a shaman or spiritual guide, or a deity of the Andean world; one popular interpretation relates the points around the head to the positions of the moon as it sets behind the hill, which would have allowed the passage of the seasons, and the coming of the scarce rains, to be read from the figure. The giant is not alone: at least twenty other geometric and animal figures are scattered over the slopes of Cerro Unita, part of the thousands of geoglyphs that make the Atacama one of the world's great open-air galleries of rock drawings. It is protected as an archaeological monument, and in 2019 more than a thousand hectares around the hill were placed under state protection. The figure was made to be read from below and from afar, and it is from the foot of the hill that its proportions make sense.
Getting there
Cerro Unita lies about 15 km from the village of Huara and some 38 km from Pozo Almonte, in the interior of the Tarapacá region. The nearest airport is Diego Aracena International at Iquique (IQQ), about 87 km away. The site is reached by road from Huara; the figures are fragile, and they are meant to be looked at from the foot of the hill rather than walked on.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Atacama Giant is an anthropomorphic geoglyph on the Cerro Unita area of the Atacama Desert, Chile. At about 119 meters, is the largest prehispanic anthropomorphic geoglyph. It has been suggested that it represents a shaman, spiritual figure or deity.
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