An Andean Stone Guardian and the Universal Language of the Ancient Cross

The object depicted is an anthropomorphic stone monolith, set upon an angular cruciform base, originating from the Andean region of the Altiplano (Moho, Puno area). The figure is highly stylized, with essential geometric features: the face is reduced to rectangular eyes, a linear nose, and a schematic mouth, while the body is conceived as a solid vertical axis, almost a ritual pillar. The overall form conveys stability, centrality, and symbolic function rather than naturalism, suggesting a ceremonial or cosmological role rather than a decorative one.

The base shaped as an angular cross evokes an extremely ancient motif, present in many civilizations across the world in different forms: the solar cross, the rotating cross, the swastika, and the Andean chakana. The swastika, in particular, is regarded as one of the oldest symbols in human history, attested since the Neolithic period and widespread across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, long before any modern or ideological appropriation. In traditional contexts it represents the movement of the sun, the cycle of life, cosmic order, the continuity between heaven and earth, and the dynamic principle that sustains the universe. In the Andes, these same meanings are expressed through the Andean cross (chakana), which organizes sacred space according to the four cardinal directions and connects the different levels of the cosmos.

From this perspective, the presence of a cruciform structure beneath the figure should not be read as a simple architectural support, but as a symbolic map of the world, a sign that places the represented being at the center of cosmic order. The monolith thus becomes a mediator between dimensions, a point of balance between opposing and complementary forces. This object bears witness to how humanity’s fundamental symbols—including the swastika understood in its original and universal meaning—belong to a shared archaic language, born from the observation of nature and the sky, and expressed in different forms by every culture without losing its essential core.