HERE COMES THE SUN

Shamans Market

Ahhh. Summer. Solstice. Sun.  And the Incan Sun God, Inti.  Inti was the Sun.  The Inca visualized their deity Inti as a man and his wife, a woman, was the Moon.  Inti controlled all.  He brought warmth, light and the sunshine necessary for agriculture. In conjunction with the Earth, he had the power over all food: It was by his will that crops grew and animals thrived.

The Inca royal family believed they were directly descended from Apu Inti the Lord Sun, through the first great Inca ruler, Manco Capac. The Inca royal family was therefore considered semi-divine by the people. Because the Inca royal family identified themselves with the Sun, it is no accident that the greatest temples in the Empire were dedicated to Inti.

Inti was associated with gold, called “the sweat of the sun,” and the Incas honored him with magnificent golden artworks. The Coricancha, Qurikancha, or Sun Temple, at Cuzco housed a golden image of Inti that looked like the sun.

Mark Cartwright, mythology historian, wrote that Inti was not often represented in Inca art but when he was it was usually as a gold statue, a sun disk or a golden mask, typically made of thinly beaten gold…“[it] had the sun’s rays bursting from the god’s head in a design common in pre-Inca deity masks. These rays were typically cut in a dramatic zig-zag fashion and sometimes ended in a small human face or figure.”  This summer, honor the sun by wearing your own reimagined Inti in our Sacred Sun Inti pendants and pins.  For a limited time we are offering all handmade, fair trade, sterling silver Inti pendants and pins at 40% off!  Happy Solistice.

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