← FRANCO

Tawa Chakana

the Andean cross, reading by reading

α CRUα CEN

THE WHOLE FORM

STONE-OLD

C Ah a tk ha i  n  g    y  o  u    c  r  o  s  s

Chakana — from the Quechua chaka: bridge. The motif is older than the Inca. It steps across the stonework of Tiwanaku, through Wari textiles, along the walls of Ollantaytambo, centuries before Cusco ruled anything.

Highlights are set in cochineal — the insect crimson the Andes dyed the world with, centuries before synthetic red existed.

Each reading arrives first in Quechua — attested words only: chaka, pacha, suyu, qosqo, rumi, q’aytu — then translates itself.

By day the stone is a sundial; it is night over Cusco now, so the shadow rests.