The Sacrificer figure in Tiahuanaco iconography has been under debate almost for a century, with questions about its identity and nature persisting to this day. In this work we present the results of an investigation of this character, whose corpus of images reveals a set of stable, connotative attributes of his special icono-graphy. Beyond to the severed head and the axe the Sacrificer holds in his hands, we propose other elements that comprise this set, such as the quadripartite tunic, the sash, the object hanging from the elbow, the body posture and the stepped platform. These features would characterize him as an agent or officiant of the shamanic rite who serves as a vehicle for communicating with the deities. While some of the aforementioned attributes have been addressed in previous works, others derive from our own analysis, and thus by bringing them all together into a single set for the first time, we are able to argue that this ubiquitous character in south-central Andean iconography signifies as a visual correlate of the shaman.