Work / monument · artifact

Lanzón

c. 900–500 BCE · 10th century BCE

The Lanzón is a carved granite monolith about 4.5 metres tall standing at the heart of the Old Temple at Chavín de Huántar in the Peruvian Andes. Shaped like a lance, it depicts a fanged deity with claws and snake-like hair and was the chief cult image of the Chavín culture, set in a narrow cross-shaped gallery deep within the temple.

Lanzón
Image: CyArk · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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Chavín

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Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Lanzón. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lanzon
MLA
“Lanzón.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lanzon. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Lanzón.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lanzon.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Lanzón’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lanzon (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻