First, a word about spelling: Is it “Tiahuanaco” or “Tiwanaku”? “Tiahuanaco” or “Tiaguanaco” is the name the Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries recorded for the archaeological site in Bolivia near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca. And “Tiahuanaco” is how researchers continued to spell the name throughout most of the twentieth century. The orthography was changed to “Tiwanaku” in more recent times in much of the new literature. Echoing John H. Rowe, the eminent linguist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino (personal communication, 2007) argues that the new spelling results from linguistic and documentary disinformation, and because, to his knowledge, there exists to this day no convincing etymology for the name, he stays with the tradition and continues to write it as “Tiahuanaco.” In this book, we follow his example. The original name for Tiahuanaco is unknown. The only hint we have is from Bernabé Cobo, who visited the site in 1610.