by Michael Mosley - The Incas and Their Ancestors
pages 74-79
Thames and Hudson Publishing 1992
The capital of Tahuantinsuyu was not large because the Inca royal families were the only people who resided in the metropolis. The chronicler Cristobal de Molina says that when the Spanish first entered the area Cuzco may have contained up to 40,000 souls, whereas some 200,000 resided within 10 to 12 leagues. Large numbers of technical personnel, artisans, and other people who worked for the government, but were not Inca by birth, lived in suburban communities near the capital. Great labor was expended upon agrarian reclamation and transformation of the imperial heartland into a park-like landscape. Magnificent terraces sculpted the hillsides, which irrigation kept verdant and luxurious. Here the nobility had sumptuous estates, and hundreds of huacas and shrines graced the scenery.
Cuzco and its environs were the quintessence
of Inca corporate construction and architecture. Only the finest stonework
was used, employing precisely carved blocks that fitted together without
the need of cement. There were two styles: one consisted of fine ashlars
laid in even horizontal courses; the other was of bold polygonal blocks.
Each multi-sided stone was a unique work laboriously cut to a special size
and faceted shape that would fit the angles of adjoining blocks. The two
styles of masonry were used for two different classes of structures: polygonal
blocks for
solid structures, such as terraces and platforms; and ashlar blocks for
buildings with freestanding walls and open interior space, often surmounting
solid structures. The doors, windows, and niches of Inca buildings were
distinctly trapezoidal, being wider at the bottom than at the top. Roofs
were gabled and of thatch. Typical of the Andes, roofed buildings were usually
one-room structures. If two or more rooms shared a roof, they were treated
as separate structures, each room having an outside entrance but no interior
doorways between compartments. Covered buildings ranged from vast assembly
halls, or kallana, to small rectangular quarters called masma
and was'. The masma form was U-shaped with one side of the building
left open. They were rare, but perpetuated an ancient tradition of erecting
U-shaped ceremonial buildings.
The most common form of quarters was the one-room wasi, with a single entry. Wasi were the houses of people and the lodges of idols and gods. They were erected alone, in clusters, or in groups within large cancha - enclosures built of stone blocks. A principal door led to the open interior of the cancha where a number of wasi were grouped around patios and courts. People generally worked out of doors near their small dwellings, and the surrounding enclosure defined their private space. The cancha-wasi architectural pattern was an ancient one that still persists among llama and alpaca herders today.
Although Inca architecture and masonry drew on earlier traditions, the lords of Cuzco added their own corporate stamp, transforming their imperial heartland into a majestic parkland.
Navel of the universe
Cuzco was among the greatest wonders of the ancient New World. For the Inca
it was literally the sacred center of the universe. Accordingly they lavished
enormous resources on opulent construction and extravagant embellishment.
From each of the distant four quarters of Tahuantinsuyu a great highway converged on the central plaza. The navel of the universe, the capac usnu, was a multifaceted dais of finely hewn rock with a vertical pillar and a carved seat, which stood within the plaza. The jutting pillar was a celestial sighting point for tracking heavenly luminaries and dark constellations in the quarters of the universe. The sculpted seat was a stone throne where the emperor, the 'son of the sun', maintained terrestrial order. The lord of the realm ascended the dais to review processions, to toast the gods, and to placate the ancestors. Copious libations of chicha were poured into the 'gullet of the sun', a regal basin of stone sheathed in gold resting at the foot of the usnu. Nearby towered the tallest of all edifices, a grand spire of exquisite masonry that cast no noontime shadow at zenith. The coming of zenith was precisely foretold from a tower window by observing sunrise over a marked point on the distant horizon.
The center of the imperial universe was intimately connected to a marvelously complex cosmos that has long defied western decipherment. The organizing principles of Cuzco were largely misunderstood by the conquistadores who left but five short, eye-witness records of the capital before it was consumed by flames during the native rebellion of 1535. These accounts are often contradictory and scholars differ in their interpretations of them. The Spanish thought native rule was similar to the Castilian monarchy, and that the Inca crown passed from father to son in dynastic manner. They recorded a list of ten Inca emperors and considered it a ten-generation succession of rulers. In a monarchy the great hero Pachacuti would have been crowned in 1438 before retiring in 1471, when son Topa Inca inherited the reins of state. Yet, with its hanan and hurin divisions, Cuzco was clearly structured by principles of dual organization. Rather than monarchy, diarchy or dual rule prevailed: hanan Cuzco was no doubt headed by a lord similar to a karaka principale while a counterpart or segunda persona led the hurin moiety. Therefore the Spanish list of emperors is subject to several very different interpretations. One is that figures such as Pachacuti and Topa Inca were not father and son, but senior and junior co-regents. If this was the case, the king list spanned but five generations, and dynastic history is truncated and compressed. Another interpretation holds that the list is not of individuals, but of imperial offices that operated concurrently and were held by the heads of royal kin groups. Split between the hanan and hurin moieties, ten royal clans, or panaqa, resided at Cuzco. Therefore, what the Spanish construed as dynastic history is likely to have been little more than a fictional kinship charter, which allowed ten ayllu to form a ruling alliance.
Inca lore associates the transformation of Cuzco into a monumental capital with the name of Pachacuti. Although the name could designate either a ruler or an office of rule, the lore outlines a three-fold succession of events that seems historically plausible. First, the Inca consolidated their homeland. Second, they expanded into the Titicaca Basin. And third, their sacred city was remade in imperial corporate style. The time span of this sequence is debatable. Initial political consolidation probably spanned a number of generations. The Inca homeland did not have a tradition of fine stonework, and architects and masons were therefore probably drawn from conquests in the Titicaca region. Thus, the Inca corporate architectural style emerged only after a political base was in place to support it.
As the Rios Huantanay and Tullamayo converge, they frame the triangle occupied by Cuzco. The narrowest section of the city, between the elongated confluence of the two rivers, was known as the Pumachupan, or puma's tail. Some scholars argue that the imperial metropolis was designed and laid out in plan as a vast puma. Others deny this. What the Inca had in mind is not clear, but the outline of a great cat seen from the side can be imposed over the architectural tracery of the Inca city. The main plaza creates an open space between the uphill front quarters of the cat, and its rear legs and down-hill tail. Forming entire city blocks, vast cancha-wasi compounds of the royal panaqa occupied the upper hanan and lower hurin sectors. Each sector apparently contained a palace compound appropriate for dual rule.
The head of the cat was formed by the largest and highest edifices, called Sacsahuaman. Perched atop a high hill, one side of the complex ran along a cliff with a commanding view of the city. The opposite side of the hill was relatively low and encased by three successively higher zigzag terraces. Each wall employed the finest and most impressive of Inca polygonal masonry, including individual stone blocks weighing from 90 to more than IZO metric tons. In plan Sacsahuaman is suggestive of an elongated animal head topped by the great terraces. A marvelous complex of fine ashlar buildings crowned a flattened hill, including tall towers, and circular and rectangular structures. Excavations have revealed a complex system of finely cut stone channels and drains suggesting ritual manipulation of water. Cieza de Leon says that Pachacuti intended Sacsahuaman to be a temple that would surpass all other edifices in splendor. Garcilaso de la Vega relates that only royalty could enter the sacrosanct complex because it was a house of the sun, of arms and war, and a temple of prayer and sacrifice. Construction supposedly employed 30,000 workers who labored for several generations.
Cuzco's most extraordinary temple, the Coricancha, was located in the puma's tail. It was a grand cancha with a single entry, enclosing six wasi-like chambers arranged around a square courtyard. One chamber, richly bedecked with gold, was dedicated to the sun and held Inti's image; a second, clad in silver, belonged to the moon and held her image. Other structures contained images or symbols of Viracocha, Illapa the lord ofthunder, Cuichu the rainbow, and various celestial bodies. In addition to the Inca pantheon, the Coricancha also housed sacred objects from conquered provinces. In an attempt to integrate their heterogeneous empire and to promote symbolic integration, the Lords of Tahuantinsuyu required kings and karakas of subject populations to spend several months a year in the Cuzco area. A hallowed huaca from each population was also required to be in perpetual residence, although the objects in it could be changed annually.
The Inca and other Andean societies employed a radial organization of space. Thus the boundary lines of the four quarters of Tahuantinsuyu radiated out of the main plaza of Cuzco and four grand highways departed along intercardinal routes approximating the intercardinal axes of Mayu. Within the plaza the pillar of the usnu and the towering Sunturwasi were used to sight outward to distant horizons where mountains and shrines provided points for tracking heavenly movements. The Inca also erected distant masonry pillars and stone pylons to sight upon the sun and to predict planting times at different elevations.
The Coricancha was the sighting center for a remarkable system of radial organization. A sun dial is perhaps the nearest analogy, but the grand temple was more akin to the hub of a cosmic dial for tracking multitudes of celestial phenomena and correlating them with terrestrial phenomena. Radiating out of the Coricancha, 4T sighting lines, called ceques, stretched to the horizon or beyond. Along these rays, or adjacent to them some 328 huacas, pillars, and survey points were arranged in a hierarchical manner. Astronomer Tony Aveni of Colgate University notes that the 328 stations represent the days in 12 sidereal lunar months. Given the importance of irrigation, it is not coincidental that one-third of the ceque points comprised the major springs and water sources of the region.
The ethnohistorian Tom Zuidema of the University of Illinois suggests that the ceaues were grouped into upper and lower sets and into four quarters. The upper set was associated with hanan Cuzco, Chinchaysuyu and Antisuyu, the lower set with hurin Cuzco, Collasuyu and Cuntisuyu. Significantly, at least one dividing line separating the four quarters was related to the intercardinal Milky Way, and to the southernmost point of Mayu's movement. Each quarter was in turn subdivided into three parts by ceque lines, and each third was again divided by three more lines. Owing to terrestrial and celestial realities, the angles of arc between lines varied. Particular ceque lines and their huacas were associated with and administered by particular panaqa. In part the rays and huacas distinguished panaqa holdings, established responsibilities and defined daily through to annual activity schedules. Thus, various spatial and temporal reference points along the rays helped to organize land, water, labor, and the ritual activities and festive ceremonies that initiated and closed work cycles.