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| Ayacucho |
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| The Land of the Gods |
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Pisco on the coast and the Highland of
Huancavelica and Ayacucho have been traditionally linked
by a flow of myths, gods, ideas, rulers and goods since
the times of Chavín (400 BC). Standing along
the roads connecting the two regions are the monuments
that bear witness to successive stages of domination:
the Spanish along the roads connecting the two regions
are the monuments that bear witness to successive stages
of domination: the Chavín, the Wari, the Incas
and, finally, the Spanish conquerors.
Ayacucho (2 750 masl) is reached after a 45 minute flight
from Lima or after a 4-5 hour drive from Pisco (235
km south of Lima) through an excellent paved road. The
most recommended visit time is April to October (with
average temperatures of 8-16° C).
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| The Vilcaswaman Administrative
Center |
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Founded by Pachacutec in the second half
of the fifteenth century AD Vilcaswaman, 110 km from
Ayacucho (3 470 masl), was the first Inca administrative
center in the Chinchaysuyu.
The settlement of about 2 square kilometers comprises
a large square and homes assigned to Tupac Inca Yupanqui
and Huayna Capac, two late Cusco sovereigns that lived
here on a temporary basis. These are also two religious
buildings known as the Temple of the Sun and the Ushnu
sanctuary. Built in stone following the Cusco Style,
the Temple of the Sun is located at the south end of
the square over three overlying platforms. The first,
at the bottom, is crenellated. The second has large
and small niches and lower. Its architectural characteristics
make it the greatest sanctuary built during the Tawantisuyu
period.
The temple of the Sun can be reached from the square
up two flights of stairs 30 steps each. A Catholic church,
San Juan Bautista, was built in Colonial times on top
of the old Temple of the Sun. The Acllawasi or “House
of the Virgins of the Sun” was behind the temple.
A wonderful finely carved polygonal wall, ponds, canals
and interior walls still stand.
One of its kind in the Tawantisuyu, the other monument
is the sanctuary or ushnu standing on the west side
of the square. An 8 meters high pyramid formed by overlying
quadrangular platforms, it includes a fine gate with
a double threshold in middle of the upper level, where
there is a finely carved stone block. Chronicles state
the rock was used to offer sacrifices to the Sun.
The Inca’s square was quasi-trapezoid and bordered
by terraces on the east and north sides. About 1 500
meters south, some 700 deposits or qolqas were found
by Spanish chronicler Cieza de León About 1 548.
A beautiful stone panel carved in fine cells can be
seen on the eastern slope. It is 100 meters wide and
three meters high. The “sacrificial stone”
is in the same area. On one of its sides there is a
hole from where two zigzagging gutters come out to embrace
the stone before joining again.
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| The Wari Capital |
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Wari -the first pan-Andean state- emerged
in Ayacucho between 550 and 800 AD. Its capital, also
called Wari, is located 25 km north of Huamanga, in the
department of Ayacucho (2 740 masl).
Wari is an example of urban planing and pre-Hispanic engineering
techniques. Its urban core, stretching over about 400
Ha and home to 40 000 inhabitants, is located strategically
to gain easy access to the central Coast and Jungle, while
lying halfway between the northern and southern Highlands.
To control these vast four regions, the Wari state built
provincial administrative centers that depended on its
capital. The most important were Pikillaqta (Cusco), Cerro
Baúl (Moquegua) and Viracochapampa (northern Highlands).
Wari controlled many colonies in different regions that
supplied it with resources like turquoises, textiles,
cotton, coca and corn. Wari is internally divided in functional
sectors. Remarkable Cheqowasi sector or cemetery area,
is a network of underground funerary chambers at several
levels. Built with rectangular, circular and quadrangular
slabs, these chambers probably hosted rulers and aristocrats.
Another sector, Moradochayoq shows the earliest evidence
of the site’s occupation, and provides additional
support to the hypothesis of permanent contacts with the
Tiawanaku culture that evolved at the same time 1 500
km away in the Lake Titicaca basin. This site comprises
a small temple built partially underground with ashlar
stone, strongly resembling the small Putuni (Tiawanaku)
temple, also a partially underground temple. On the other
hand, the central god of the Waris was the “god
of the scepters”, an adapted version of the Tiawanaku
god represented in the so-called Gate of the Sun (Puno).
A third sector worth noticing is Capillapata, a large
group of trapezoid and rectangular constructions up to
400 meters long and with stone walls over 10 m high. Finally,
the Ushpaqoto sector exhibits sculptures of modeled human
figures. Evidences of workshops and warehouses have been
found here. |
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| The Walleed City of Pikillaqta |
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Pikillaqta or “city of fleas”,
thus called because of the numerous four square meter
rooms located over a hill dominating the beautiful Lucre
lagoon (3 806 masl), is the largest pre- Inca city in
Cusco and is entirely Wari.
One of the most representative Wari sites is Pikillaqta,
this civilization’s most important administrative
center and symbol of the Wari state in the Cusco region.
At the same time, it was a ceremonial center and a place
of residence for aristocrats, priests and temporary workers.
A model of urban planing, the walled 50 Ha area was densely
occupied for 150 years from 700 to 850 AD. Located 32
km from the city of Cusco, Pikillaqta is built over large
rectangular and square fields of restricted access. Streets
and corridors connect the various areas separated by walls
over 12 meters high.
To the northeast, a remarkable compound comprising more
than 500 standard- size elements can be entered only through
one door. These rooms were used as temporary lodgings
for visiting workers. Other sectors comprise two.floor
houses with painted and plastered walls. |
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| The Quipus: A Paperless Bureaucracy |
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Bureaucracy inevitable makes us think of
large offices crowded by bored workers who classify huge
stacks of documents. It is even hard to imagine a state
that will function without some sort of coded information.
However, the well-organized Inca state did exactly that
by resorting to Quipu memory techniques based on the used
of colored strings that were as efficient as they were
sophisticated.
And in spite of the demeaning modern connotation of the
“bureaucrat” term, the first Spanish conquerors
who saw the Inca State still at work had only words of
praise for the efficiency of the state apparatus. How
was this possible when writing and reading were apparently
unknown to the Incas?
Thanks to endless Andean creativity in handling information.
The well-known Inca road network, the road inns knows
as tambos, the sending of encrypted information with quipus
carried by teams to relay runners called chasquis, and
the quipus themselves, together with specialized quipu
interpreters known as quipukamayocs were all logistic
arrangements within a highly sophisticated communication
system.
Quipus, which earliest examples date back to the seventh
century AD, from Wari origin, were basically numerical
records where figures referred to quantities of nonnumber
classes recorded in the quipu. These classes included
population headcounts, farm output, important dates, capacity
at state warehouses, quantity and type of products stored,
and –of course-military service and labor time owed
to the state.
Handling of the data so stored demanded knowledge and
use of alla basic arithmetic operations, as well as more
sophisticated mathematical operations including matrices
and hierarchical functions. Quipus permitted to record,
and then express, a symbolic numerical order at the very
same level of abstractions as written narration.
The quipu´s mathematical structure seems to have
been powerful enough to allow encoding of mathematical
propositions. In turn, the encryption key for a specific
class could also be encoded and decoded by a quipucamayok,
or master of quipus, elsewhere.
Evidence suggests a standardized encryption process was
already underway. If quipus were thus used, at least in
some cases by specific users, then they were indeed evolving
into a writing system.
Quipus
and Numbers
Quipus were made with a main cord from which other secondary
strings hang. Hanging cords were organized in several
subclasses separated by a gap in the primary cord, and
organized by color pattern, type of thread and other distinctive
marks. Non.numerical class markers referred to specific
categories.
Each set of hanging cords was in turn attached to a higher-level
cord running in the opposite direction to the hanging
cord. This cord gave the set’s total. Additional
subsidiary cords were tied to the hanging and higher level
cords, and so on.
Number information was represent by the form and spacing
of knots in the hanging cords. The knots required from
two to nine turns, each turn standing for digits from
two to nine, while an “8” shaped knot stood
for number one.
Digits were knotted at the furthest end of the primary
cord. Bundles of simple knots tied together stood for
figures to the power of 10. The higher on the string,
the higher the power. For instance, two knots together,
one level above the primary digits meant 600 and so
on. Zero was represented by the absence of knots in
the corresponding numerical position. |
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Archeology |
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