Llullaillaco
— — a peak the Inca climbed to keep a promise.
Not only on a wall.
“A stratovolcano standing 6,739 metres above the Atacama Desert, on the border between Chile and Argentina. The highest historically active volcano on earth, last erupted in 1877. In 1999 a team led by Johan Reinhard found three Inca children on the summit, preserved by the cold for five centuries. The mountain held them as it was asked to.
Llullaillaco, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Llullaillaco is a stratovolcano on the border between the Antofagasta Region of Chile and Salta Province of Argentina, in the central Andes. Its summit reaches 6,739 metres (22,110 feet) above sea level, the second-highest volcano in the world and the highest with documented historical eruptions. The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program records three eruptions in the 19th century, the most recent in May 1877. The mountain sits in the driest part of the Atacama plateau, where almost no precipitation falls in some years, and there is no permanent settlement within fifty kilometres.
The summit is dry, cold, and almost airless: atmospheric pressure on top runs at roughly 45 percent of sea level. Snowfall is rare and what falls usually sublimates before melting, which is why archaeological material on the upper mountain survives so well. The Llullaillaco summit ruins, including a small ceremonial platform and shelter walls, are the highest known archaeological site in the world. Climbers normally approach from the Argentine side via the Socompa rail station, then a long four-wheel drive across the salt flat to a base camp near 4,900 metres.
In March 1999 an expedition led by the American anthropologist Johan Reinhard, working with Argentine archaeologist Constanza Ceruti, found three Inca children buried near the summit: a 15-year-old girl known as La Doncella, a 6-year-old girl, and a 7-year-old boy. The bodies date to around 1500 and are among the best-preserved mummies ever recovered. They were part of a capacocha sacrifice, the Inca rite that placed chosen children on high peaks as offerings to mountain deities. The three are kept at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology (MAAM) in Salta city under climate-controlled display.