The city of Tiwanaku, cap­i­tal of a pow­er­ful pre-His­­pan­ic empire that dom­i­nat­ed a large area of the south­ern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee between 500 and 900 AD. Its mon­u­men­tal remains tes­ti­fy to the cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of this civil­i­sa­tion, which is dis­tinct from any of the oth­er pre-His­­pan­ic empires of the Amer­i­c­as.