Museum Intiñan - menhir

MENHIR · LATITUDE 0°0’0’’

Lithic work · Ecuador, 2012

In 2012, I was invited by the Director of Sculpture and by the Director and owner of the Museo Intiñan, located at the City of the Middle of the World (Quito, Ecuador), to become part of its permanent collection.

Museo Intiñan houses representative lithic works from different countries, connected to the original civilizations of the American continent.

The proposal consisted of creating a lithic work that would represent the first organized civilization of what is now Argentine territory to work stone in a monumental and symbolic way.

I was the first woman sculptor invited to join this collection.

Research and choice of the model

Following this invitation, I began a research process that led me to travel to Tucumán, Argentina, where I came into direct contact with the menhirs of Tafí del Valle, belonging to the Tafí culture (800 BCE – 400 CE), one of the earliest agricultural and ceramic cultures of Northwestern Argentina.

On site, I studied the menhirs in depth:

• measured their proportions,

• analyzed their material composition,

• observed their engravings and their relationship with the surrounding territory.

Among them, the Ambrosetti Menhir emerged as the most representative:

an anthropomorphic figure with a strong phallic character, symbolically associated with fertility, fecundity, magical-religious power, and a profound connection to the earth and natural cycles.

This menhir was taken as a reference to produce a faithful reproduction, respectful of its form, scale, and symbolic meaning.

Production of the work

The sculpture was produced in the workshop of the artist Saavedra, in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, who was also the Director of Sculpture at the museum.

The production process lasted 18 consecutive days, working 12 hours a day, in an intensive, physical, and sustained effort.

Due to its size and weight, the piece was created in two sections and later transported to Quito, where I completed its assembly for its permanent installation at Museo Intiñan.

Inauguration · Equinox

The inauguration took place on the day of the equinox, at exactly 12:00 noon, the precise moment when the sun falls perpendicularly on the equatorial line (latitude 0°0’0’’).

In Andean cosmology, this moment represents a symbolic fertilization of the earth, when the sun and the stone meet.

The menhir, as an ancestral form associated with fertility, reaches its full symbolic potency in this context.

The event was attended by the Argentine Ambassador to Ecuador and the Cultural Attaché, who also donated the official plaque accompanying the work.

Ritual and celebration

The inauguration was not only institutional, but also ritual and cultural.

It included:

• traditional Argentine dances,

• Ecuadorian folk dances,

• and the presence of the Diablo Huma (Aya Huma), a central figure of Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun.

The Diablo Huma is an ancestral figure from the Ecuadorian Andes.

His dance represents the duality of the cosmos (sun/moon, good/evil), the connection with Pachamama, and the balance of natural forces.

He dances in three movements —Earth, Sun, and Moon— wearing a double-faced mask and carrying a symbolic whip, activating energies of protection and fertility.

This convergence of rituals, cultures, and territories transformed the inauguration into a symbolic act of union between Argentina and Ecuador through art.

About the menhirs of Tafí del Valle

The menhirs of the Tafí culture are not the earliest lithic objects in what is now Argentine territory —much older stone tools from pre-ceramic cultures exist— but they do represent one of the first moments of social, symbolic, and monumental organization of stonework in Northwestern Argentina.

These monoliths, over 2,000 years old, are associated with:

• ritual practices,

• ancestor worship,

• fertility,

• territorial marking,

• and cosmologies linked to agriculture and natural cycles.

The Ambrosetti Menhir, in particular, is one of the most studied and representative pieces of this culture.