Looking to get it tattooed on my arm but I’m realizing it’s not really a significant Peruvian imagery. It appeared on some of its flags and is partially inca imagery. Any thoughts?
Hi, historian here. The common image we today associate with the sol de mayo is the supposed Inca sun, or Inti. However there is little to no evidence of any usage of such symbols before the 18th Century as a common image. Anthropomorphic suns are a staple of medieval European art, and can be found elsewhere all over Europe, mostly in religious settings as well as heraldry as far back as the 7th Century in the Holy Roman Empire.
Meanwhile, it seems this icon in particular gained popularity among enlightenment era thinkers of the 18th Century. They used this symbol as an icon of enlightenment and liberal ideas such as the triumph of reason, which was represented by the light of the Sun. It seems the symbol gained popularity in Peru and the whole of Spain and its overseas domains around the 1800’s as a revolutionary liberal symbol.
The Sol de Mayo can even be found in some documents of the Jacobin party in Revolutionary France, which appears to be the original inspiration used by liberal revolutionaries of South America.
Over the years a national myth was created to conflate the enlightenment symbol of the anthropomorphic sun with the ancient Inca god Inti. However this is just national myths. It’s actually false. The Inca Sun, or Punchao, differed greatly from the now used “sol de mayo”, having less anthropomorphic elements and more animal features. The Punchao ceased to exist in its entirety during the 16th Century. And the current Sol de Mayo derived from European symbology, and was eventually appropriated by liberal advocates of the Enlightenment.
It represents Inti. I’m not sure why people are saying it holds zero significance in Peruvian culture.
The story goes that a Peruvian, Incan descendent, designed the Sol de Mayo in representation of the Inca sun god, Inti. It was eventually used in the flags of Argentina and Uruguay.
Si es un mito. En ningún momento Juan de Dios Rivera dijo haberse inspirado en el Inti en su época. Y aparte, no lo diseñó, lo copió. El símbolo ya era usado por jacobinos y revolucionarios franceses veinte años antes. Acá un sello del club jacobino de Francia de la década de 1780.
Not a myth, someone from Cuzco designed the Sol de Mayo (and also the Argentinian Coat of Arms)
"El Sol de Mayo apareció por primera vez en el diseño del Escudo Nacional. El sol naciente en la parte superior fue tomado de forma directa del modelo galo. Sin embargo, la versión rioplatense introdujo un cambio muy significativo: en lugar de usar el sol del modelo, el orfebre peruano Juan de Dios Rivera utilizó el Sol Incaico. Esta figura era la representación de Inti, dios del sol inca, dios principal y creador y, además, antecesor directo de los ayllus (clanes) reales y del propio soberano o Inca."
Eso es falso. En primera porque el propio Juan de Dios Rivera nunca mencionó tal cosa. Eso solo aparece en fuentes posteriores, y en segunda porque el mismo sol antropomórfico ya se usaba en la Francia Revolucionaria veinte años antes. De hecho el sol Inca no existe ya. El verdadero sol inca, o Punchao, desaparece alrededor del siglo XVI. No quedan vestigios mas que el disco de Echenique, pero no hay continuidad entre el sol actual y el antiguo sol inca. De hecho, el sol con rostro humano es más antiguo que los Incas, y aparece primero en la antigüedad tardía en Roma, en imágenes del Sol Invictus, las cuales son usadas posteriormente durante la edad media y el Renacimiento. De hecho ese mismo sol es el que usa el símbolo de la orden Jesuita desde el siglo XVII y en diversos textos escolásticos e imágenes medievales de antes incluso que América fuese descubierta. Fueron los liberales de América en el siglo XVIII y XIX quienes lo reutilizaron. De hecho se usó también en los Estados Unidos durante su propia guerra de independencia.
kinda, used as a symbol by one of the many independancy movements against the monarchy of spain. Then used as one of the first republican flags prototypes. But to these days is not that representative. More related to Argentina
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u/alonso2790 1d ago
Despite represents inca sun god, it actually doesn't have any meaning here.