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The Inka Capital Cusco as the Model of an Imperial Cultural Landscape

An Archaeological Reconstruction of the Inka Capital, Cusco

Prior to the 1980s, most of the academic literature showcased a picture of Cusco that was primarily derived from ethnographic descriptions. This picture elevated Pachakuti Inka Yupanki, the ninth Inka ruler (ca. 1438–1471), as the historical genius who more or less single-handedly and within a few decades established Inka control of the Cusco region, redesigned the capital, and accelerated territorial expansion. Comprehensive and systematic archaeological surveys accompanied by test excavations conducted by Brian Bauer and many colleagues in the regions surrounding Cusco have since documented that the processes of Inka rise to power were much slower and complex and have called into question some of the accomplishments credited to Pachakuti.

It is now clear that the two great Middle Horizon power players, the Wari empire and the Tiwanaku state, declined in the tenth century.⁴ In the succeeding Late Intermediate Period, lasting from approximately 1000 to 1400 CE, the Inka were one of a multitude of ethnic groups, or senorios, rivaling for power in what is now the Cusco region. Throughout the Andean highlands, the Late Intermediate Period was a time of turmoil and instability. Many people left fertile valley bottom lands to relocate in higher-elevation ridgetop settlements where they built defensive walls and switched to an economy based upon high-altitude crops and pastoral activities.⁵ The most intensive study of Late Intermediate Period settlement patterns has been conducted by the Upper Mantaro Archaeological Research Project in the Jauja region of the Department of Junin. Terence D’Altroy and colleagues have reported that the local Wanka ethnic group left valley-bottom communities and resettled at fortified ridgetop sites between approximately 1000 and 1300 CE. Many of the fourteenth-century Wanka sites were large, extending between 20 and 70 ha, yet social ranking within these centers appears to have been minimal.⁶ Similar findings come from the Lake Titicaca region far to the southeast of Cusco.⁷ Elizabeth Arkush has investigated Late Intermediate Period defensive hilltop sites in the northwestern Titicaca Basin.⁸ Her findings indicate that the majority of these sites were constructed between 1300 and 1450 CE in response to chronic warfare brought on by regional tensions aggravated by factors of climate change.

In the Cusco Basin, major disruptions in settlement patterns occurred particularly in the southeast during the Late Intermediate Period (also referred to as Killke Period in this region).⁹ All existing valley-bottom settlements between the Cusco and Lucre Basins were abandoned and one new fortified site was established on a broad ridge above the valley floor.¹⁰ This depopulated area is interpreted as a buffer zone between the Inka who occupied an early settlement of Cusco and the Mohina and Pinahua people of the Lucre Basin. The archaeological record of the Inka’s neighbors is dominated by Killke ceramics that have been found in the center of Cusco, in the Cusco Valley, as well as in further outlying areas. For these reasons, the terms Late Intermediate Period and Killke Period are used interchangeably in the Cusco Valley. Bauer and colleagues¹¹ note that after 1000 CE, several large new villages and extensive sets of terracing and canal systems were constructed on the northern slopes of the Huatanay River immediately to the southeast of the center of Cusco, where few agricultural settlements had existed previously.¹² Bauer and Covey¹³ interpret the ability to organize and construct large public works in order to create surpluses for the elite as an important strategy of the emerging Inka state. In sum, the archaeological record indicates that urban Cusco, the power base of the Inka, grew in size in contrast to the general disruptions and shifts in settlement patterns.¹⁴ Sometime around 1400 CE and perhaps as early as 1200 CE,¹⁵ the Inka began to emerge as the dominant regional polity, conquering and subjugating their neighbors.

Archaeologists have configured a fairly concise picture of Inka Cusco (figure 6.2).¹⁶ Inka Cusco grew between the Saphy/Huatanay and Tullumayo rivers and was centered on the main plaza, which had two sectors separated by the Saphy/Huatanay River: Awkaypata and Kusipata. Victor Angles Vargas discusses the names and spellings of the two sections of the main plaza in Cusco.¹⁷ The Spanish writers spelled Awkaypata and Kusipata in a number of different ways because the Quechua language had not been written down and each author wrote indigenous words as he heard them. The two names translate as “place of crying” (Awkaypata)¹⁸ and “place of rejoicing” (Kusipata).¹⁹ Angles Vargas relates the names to Inka ritual practices.

Figure 6.2. Plan of the center of Cusco. (Adapted from Graziano Gasparini and Luise Margolies, Inca Architecture [Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1980])

A feature of great interest is the foregrounded rock or usnu situated in the main plaza (figure 6.2). Nobody knows exactly what the usnu looked like or where in the main plaza it stood because the descriptions by the chroniclers are not consistent.²⁰ Tom Zuidema reasons that there were two usnus used for solar observations.²¹ In authoritative publications, John Hyslop, Zuidema, and Frank M. Meddens have investigated the Cusco usnus, other usnus, and the complex symbolic connotations associated with them.²² They conclude that usnus could assume a number of material forms: they could be stone pillars, stone seats, stone basins or fonts linked to underground channels, platforms, or truncated pyramids. Depending on their forms, usnus had a variety of functions ranging from an elevated seat of authority that was usually accentuated by colorful canopies to locales for libation rituals and solar observations.²³

The main plaza was fronted by major imperial buildings identified as the palaces of Inka rulers and as kallankas (figure 6.2) (see below). The Qasana compound at the northwest corner of Awkaypata, beside the Saphy River, was probably the palace of Wayna Qhapaq (the eleventh ruler).²⁴ Beside the Qasana stood the Coracora compound, which Garcilaso de la Vega mentions as the palace of Inka Roqa (the sixth ruler).²⁵ At the northeast corner, above Awkaypata, the palace of Waskhar (the twelfth ruler) was situated, and near the present chapel El Triunfo, an earlier palace of Wayna Qhapaq may have existed. The Colonial Cathedral likely took the place of the palace of Wiraqocha Inka (the eighth ruler).²⁶ The southwest corner of the plaza was occupied by the Amarukancha compound, probably built by Waskhar;²⁷ separated from it by Loreto Street stood the Aqllahuaci compound, where lived the aqllas, young women selected for state and religious service.²⁸ Hatunkancha compound was located on the southeast corner of Awkaypata and Garcilaso identifies it as the palace of Pachakuti Inka Yupanki (the ninth ruler).²⁹

Some of these palace compounds included kallanka buildings. A kallanka is generally defined as a great hall or long structure with a gabled roof supported by a row of pillars set the entire length of the long axis and exhibiting numerous door openings facing a plaza.³⁰ Garcilaso de la Vega provides the most detailed description of the Cusco kallankas.³¹ He talks about four great halls, the largest of which was the Qasana compound situated at the northwest corner of Awkaypata.

To my knowledge, there is no archaeological information about the Cusco kallankas because the contemporary city unfolds on top of their remains. Nor are there radiocarbon dates that would assist in tying palace constructions to the reigns of specific rulers (see below in the section on ethnographic reconstruction).

In the greater context of the Inka capital, the whole main plaza constituted the dividing line between the Hanan (upper) and Hurin (lower) divisions and the four roads of the empire departed from it to the four suyu (quarters of the empire). The dualistic and quadripartite structures of Inka social and political organization may well have been reflected in the Awkaypata-Kusipata division itself.

A narrow street exited Awkayata Plaza to the south and led to the Qorikancha, or Temple of the Sun. While the main plaza functioned as the public, administrative, and ideological center of the capital, the Qorikancha was the religious core of Cusco. In Inka times, the Qorikancha displayed an extended kancha design. Kanchas were basic Inka residential units composed of a courtyard surrounded by one-room structures and enclosed by a perimeter wall with one controlled entrance. Inside the Qorikancha, the one-room structures were temples dedicated to various natural forces, such as Thunder, Lightning, the Moon, and the Sun. The actual Sun temple projected out west from the kancha design and was supported by a massive curving wall built of precisely cut and fitted cubic stone blocks. The west side must have served as the public frontal façade of the Qorikancha. As Pedro Cieza de León describes, “there was a garden in which the earth was lumps of fine gold, and it was cunningly planted with stalks of corn that were of gold—stalk, leaves, and ears . . . there were more than twenty sheep of gold with their lambs, and the shepherds who guarded them, with their slings and staffs, all of this metal. There were many tubs of gold and silver and emeralds, and goblets, pots, and every kind of vessel all of fine gold.”³³ This and other descriptions reported by Cieza de León help the reader visualize the enormous wealth encountered by the Spaniards in the Inka Empire and concentrated in Cusco. In addition, Qorikancha was the central node and starting point of the zeq’e system (the concept of forty-one lines radiating out from the Qorikancha and marked by shrines), discussed below since the primary sources of information come from ethnography.

Leaving the core area of Cusco, we encounter a tremendously important complex of buildings, massive walls, and rock sculptures on a hill overlooking the city in the north: Saqsaywaman (figure 6.3). Saqsaywaman is frequently explained as a fortress due to the monumentality of its rampart zigzag walls and to Spanish accounts that it was used as a military stronghold in the battles between the Spanish and the forces of Manqo Inka in the 1530s. At the same time, numerous Spanish writers state that Saqsaywaman fulfilled multiple functions: it served as a Sun Temple and a royal palace, and it had two towers and many storehouses.³⁴ Construction began under Pachakuti and was completed by his successors.

Figure 6.3. Cusco, Saqsaywaman. (Plan adapted from Gasparini and Margolies, Inka Architecture, and photograph by Brian Garrett)

The design of Saqsaywaman adapts to the topography of the hilltop. The principal performance stage for public events is a flat esplanade framed by ridge-like outcrops on the southern and northern sides. The southern outcrop displays the well-known terraced zigzag walls composed of irregular stone blocks of varying sizes which were shaped and fitted together so precisely that no mortar was required. This restored set of zigzag terraces faces the esplanade. Cusco archaeologists have discovered evidence of a second set of zigzag terraces on the hillside descending toward the city. Between the two sets of zigzag walls and on top of the ridge are the foundations of rectangular rooms and of at least one circular tower. The northern outcrop contains a sunken flat area surrounded by a low circular retaining wall. It is generally interpreted as a reservoir since sections of an intricate canal system are visible around it. Numerous carved rocks grace its projecting bedrock areas contrasted by cave openings and caverns.

An Ethnographic Reconstruction of the Inka Capital, Cusco

Contrasting with the archaeological survey results are the mythohistorical explanations of the origin of the Inka dynasty and the founding of Cusco as the Inka capital, which must be understood as a later retrospect strategy to justify and legitimize the rising power of the Inka state. Based on the two dominant stories of origin, the Inka were not locals but foreigners sent by deities from supernatural places. Scholars believe that the official myth centered on the site of Pacariqtambo.³⁵ Near Pacariqtambo was a place with three caves called Tampu T’oqo. The Creator God summoned four brothers and four sisters who founded the Inka dynasty from the central cave and other groups who became the ancestral Cusco ayllus (extended corporate lineage groups) from the adjoining caves. The four brothers and sisters were paired as couples and Manqo Qhapaq and his sister and wife Mama Oqllu assumed a leadership role. These ancestors began to hike in search of a place to settle and eventually founded Cusco.

The second story places the point of origin on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca. Here the Creator God Wiraqocha called forth the sun, the moon, and the stars from holes in a sacred rock.³⁶ This rock became the destination of one of the most important pilgrimages in the Andes and was appropriated by the Inka into their state ideology. After setting the celestial bodies in motion, Wiraqocha fashioned humans. The Sun selected Manqo Qhapaq and Mama Oqllu as the principal couple and sent them in a northwestern direction to find a “chosen” valley for their people to settle. Here the first myth picks up the narrative: they reemerged from Tampu T’oqo together with the ancestral ayllus and went on to found their capital Cusco and a new state.

It is significant that both mythohistorical locations of origin have been identified on the ground and have rock art and/or sacred rocks as their centers. Thus it must be noted early on that sacred boulders and carved rock wak’as (complex sacred places endowed with spirits that required offerings and regular maintenance) were vital elements in the construction of a specifically Inka political landscape of origin.

Manqo Qhapaq supposedly became the first ruler in a line of twelve or thirteen successors (table 6.1). Spanish accounts imply that he and his followers were the first to live in what was to become the imperial capital Cusco. Other ethnographic sources, however, indicate that at the time of their arrival, the future site of Cusco was occupied by a village with the name of Acamama. This settlement comprised four sections: Quinti Cancha, or the District of the Humming Bird; Chumbi Cancha, or the District of the Weavers; Sairi Cancha, or the District of Tobacco; and Yarambuy Cancha, which was probably a mixed district inhabited by Aymara and Quechua speakers.³⁷ Acamama was also divided into upper (Hanan) and lower (Hurin) halves. It follows that the quadripartite and dual spatial divisions that the Inka appropriated and integrated into their state organization were already present in this pre-Inka settlement. It can be shown that concepts of a four-part order as well as binary oppositions and complementarity were part of a pan-Andean system of thinking.³⁸

There is still no consensus in the literature as to whether the first seven rulers were historical or mythological individuals (table 6.1). Beginning with the eighth ruler, Wiraqocha Inka, the ethnographic records become a lot more extensive. Much of the information focuses on conquests and it may have been this ruler who changed Inka military strategies from raiding and alliances to territorial expansion.³⁹ The stories of conquest begin with the notorious Chanka wars widely discussed in the literature.⁴⁰ The Chanka were another local senorio who offered resistance and thus stood in the way of Inka westward expansion.⁴¹ They are said to have outnumbered the Inka army and Wiraqocha Inka fled to his estate at Caquia Xaquixaguana (Juchuy Qosqo) together with Inka Urqon, his son and heir designate, and most of the elite. His other son, Inka Yupanki, decided to stay in Cusco and defend it or die along with a few equally committed men. The night before the battle, Inka Yupanki prayed for assistance and the Creator God appeared to him in a dream and vision, promising additional warriors and final victory. And so it happened: during battle, the number of Inka fighters magically increased as stones turned into warriors (pururaucas) and the Chanka were repelled. There followed a period of tension between Inka Yupanki and his father, who remained at Caquia Xaquixaguana. But eventually Wiraqocha Inka traveled to Cusco, placed the fringe of rulership on Inka Yupanki’s head, and gave his son the title “Pachacuti Ynga Yupangui Capac Yndichuri,” which means “change of time, King Yupanque, son of the Sun.” (Juan de Betanzos provides us with one of the most detailed accounts of Pachakuti’s life and commissions, which are central to any study of Cusco; therefore I continue to paraphrase him.) In the end, Pachakuti accepted his father’s apologies for past offenses, including a failed assassination attempt, and the two participated in the festivities of Cusco together until the death of Wiraqocha Inka.⁴² According to Miguel de Cabello Valboa,⁴³ the victory over the Chanka occurred in 1438 CE and Pachakuti ruled from 1438 to 1471.

Another notable project Pachakuti Inka Yupanki undertook was the rebuilding of the city of Cusco. Betanzos offers a vivid account that depicts Pachakuti as a farsighted urban planner and effective organizer of labor.⁴⁴ After making the decision to rebuild the city of Cusco, Pachakuti met with the Inka nobility to discuss how to procure stone and clay. “After this was done, Inca Yupanque outlined the city and had clay models made just as he planned to have it built.”⁴⁵ After all the materials and workers were assembled,

Pachakuti had mobilized a crew of 50,000 and they worked for twenty years from the first improvements of channelizing the Tullumayo and Saphy Rivers, which flow through Cusco, until the completion of the building program. When the city was finished, Pachakuti held a town meeting, inviting all the lords of Cusco and the lower classes of inhabitants. He ordered that the sketch of the city and the clay model that he had commissioned be brought to this meeting. With the model in front of him, he assigned houses and lots to the nobility of Cusco and all other residents. He had three lords, whose names are given as Vicaquirao, Apomayta, and Quilescache Urcoguaranca, settle between the Temple of the Sun and the point where the two rivers join. They belonged to his lineage but they were illegitimate sons of lords and therefore held a lower social rank. Pachakuti named this section of his city Hurin Cusco, or lower Cusco, and its far end Pumachupa, which means “lion’s tail.” The area from the Temple of the Sun on up, between the two rivers up to the hill of Saqsaywaman, he distributed among the prominent lords of his lineage and his own direct descent line. This section became Hanan Cusco, or upper Cusco. Based on this description and references by other writers, the new layout of Cusco is understood as visualizing the body of a puma with its tail at Pumachupa and the head at Saqsaywaman. Pachakuti concluded the rebuilding program with the peculiar order that “in this city there be no mixing of people or offspring other than his own and his orejon warriors. He wanted this city to be the most distinguished in all the land and the one all the other towns had to serve and respect.”⁴⁷

Although at a first and rather superficial glance, this may look like a unique and detailed account of a precontact imperial urban design, the reader has to be aware that Betanzos’s report was colored by his personal life. He married a woman who was a niece of the emperor Wayna Qhapaq and had been the wife of Atawallpa in her first marriage. Thus his in-laws belonged to Pachakuti’s descendant kin group and they were his main consultants.⁴⁸ It is to be expected that they tried to enumerate the great accomplishments of their famous ancestor and Betanzos himself likely shared their partisanship. Nevertheless, although some of the specifics may have been invented by Betanzos’s family, his account together with those of other Spanish writers substantiate that Pachakuti rebuilt Cusco according to a well-deliberated design with calculated political connotations.

In addition to the puma shape, Inka Cusco followed the dual (Hanan-Hurin) and quadripartite (suyu) spatial divisions that had already structured pre-Inka Acamama (see section above on archaeological reconstruction). Garcilaso de la Vega claims that the Hanan and Hurin halves were instituted by Manqo Qhapaq and Mama Oqllu.⁴⁹ Father Bernabe Cobo and Cristóbal de Molina, among other Spanish writers, explain how the Inka state under Pachakuti and his followers appropriated the quadripartite division and recast it into a spatial, social, and ideological mechanism by means of the zeq’e system, which had the potential of serving as a control device for the entire empire.

The urban design of Cusco followed three major systems that geographically and conceptually overlapped (figure 6.2): first, and most important, the Inka divided their empire into four regions, or suyu, which originated in the center of Cusco. Four major roads departed from the Main Plaza (Awkaypata) in Cusco in the directions of these four quarters: Chinchaysuyu in the northwest, Antisuyu in the northeast, Kollasuyu in the southeast, and Kuntisuyu in the southwest. These groupings were extended throughout the entire empire so that each region belonged to one suyu. The second division echoed the topography of the Cusco Valley and grouped the city into two halves or moieties: the upper half, or Hanan Cusco, was made up of Chinchaysuyu and Antisuyu, while the lower half, or Hurin Cusco, consisted of Kollasuyu and Kuntisuyu. The Inka associated each moiety with specific rulers: the first five rulers in the dynastic list, Manqo Qhapaq through Qhapaq Yupanki, were affiliated with Hurin Cusco, while the last five Inkas, Inka Roq’a through Thupa Inka Yupanki, were associated with Hanan Cusco.

Overlaid onto these two divisions was the zeq’e system. Zeq’es were imagined abstract lines departing from the Qorikancha/Temple of the Sun in the center of Cusco in a radial fashion. Altogether there were forty-one zeq’es and their directions were determined by the locations of numerous shrines, or wak’as, totaling more than 328. Brian Bauer’s field investigations documented that of the 328 wak’as, 96 (29%) were springs or sources of water and approximately 95 (29%) were standing stones. Other shrine categories included hills and mountain passes (32, or 10%), palaces of the royal Inkas and temples (28, or 9%), fields and flat places (28, or 9%), tombs (10, or 3%), and ravines (7, or 2%). Less frequent wak’as were caves (3, or 1%), quarries (3, or 1%), stone seats (3, or 1%), sunset markers (3, or 1%), trees (2, or 1%), and roads (2, or 1%).⁵⁰

Father Bernabe Cobo explains the zeq’e system as follows:

Cobo was born in Spain in 1580 but spent much of his adult life in Peru and Mexico.⁵² He was trained by the Jesuit Order and became well known for his historical writings. In 1653, four years before his death, he completed his Historia del Nuevo Mundo, containing forty-three books divided into three parts from which the quotation above was taken. Most significant in the context of this essay is Book 13, which contains four chapters describing and naming the zeq’e lines and their associated wak’as in each suyu. According to Cobo’s account, Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, and Kollasuyu contained nine zeq’es each while Kuntisuyu is said to have had fourteen.

Most importantly, Cobo establishes a relationship between the zeq’es, their wak’as, and social groups within Cusco:

Occasionally, Cobo is more specific and notes which kin group was responsible for a particular zeq’e. For example, for the fourth zeq’e of Antisuyu (An-4) he writes:

An analysis of the various kin group names included in Cobo’s description of the zeq’e lines shows that the obligation of maintaining and worshipping the shrines along the zeq’es was divided between two broadly defined social groups: the panaqas of the ruling Inkas and the nonroyal ayllus of Cusco.⁵⁵ The panaqas were the royal ayllus and consisted of the direct descendants of Inka kings while citizens of lower social status made up the nonroyal ayllus of Cusco.

Discussion: Reconstruction of Cusco as a Local and Imperial Political Landscape

The archaeological and ethnographic reconstructions of Cusco presented above may appear to the reader like two separate mosaic panels with missing tesserae that do not complement each other to form a complete picture. I will begin by summarizing our current understanding of Cusco.

The Inka were a local people in the valley formed by the Huatanay/Saphy and Tullumayo Rivers and had settlements in the area of what was to become Cusco. After the fall of the Wari Empire and during the ensuing political and economic instability of the Late Intermediate Period, most ethnic groups left their valley-bottom lands and relocated to defensible ridgetop sites. The Inka were the notable exception: they held their settlements in the valley and built up their economic infrastructure by constructing large-scale agricultural terrace systems. The resulting food surpluses led from subsistence farming to division of labor. Such a transition required organization and management by an elite who would have collected the surpluses and redistributed them among families whose men worked in the construction of public buildings or roads or served in the army. The Inka probably practiced an early state-level organization of this type between 1200 and 1300. The names of the individuals in charge cannot be archaeologically documented, nor do we have radiocarbon or any other precise dates for the redesign of Cusco into a capital. The most solid archaeological evidence for Late Intermediate/Killke–Period Cusco is based upon the presence and radiocarbon dating of Killke ceramics and suggests that the Killke-Period occupation of Cusco was “quite extensive.”⁵⁶ It must have corresponded with the ethnographic Acamama (see above).

It is reasonable to suggest that a line of authoritative rulers—Pachakuti who reigned from 1438 to 1471, according to Miguel de Cabello Valboa (see above) and others—transformed the existing Inka settlements into the well-planned imperial capital of Cusco between 1300 and 1500. The design of Cusco was most likely not the brainchild of one ingenious individual, like Pachakuti, but it unfolded as a process initiated by one ruler. Subsequent rulers made changes and additions yet they seem to have adhered to a fundamental plan that was defined by certain architectural elements, spatial divisions, and the treatment of stone.⁵⁷ This “grand plan” materialized the capital city of Cusco and was experienced by the people who lived and served there. It was copied at various provincial centers and perceived as a link with Cusco and the ruling state by the local population. And it was ultimately imagined by the Inka rulers as a state mechanism that would help integrate the growing empire. The Inka “grand plan” not only consisted of “brick and mortar” but relied on the calculated appropriation of pre-Inka and general Andean features and beliefs that were all refabricated into a targeted Inka ideology of the land. The resulting multidirectional relations of the Inka political landscape are elaborated below.

As was described in the archaeological and ethnographic reconstructions, the diagnostic features of Inka Cusco may be summarized as follows:

These five features were exported and creatively adopted in many regional centers throughout the empire to construct practical copies of Cusco. These Cusco replicas played an active role in Inka geopolitics, signaling hegemony, inclusion versus exclusion of neighboring settlements, obeisance versus independence of other ethnic groups, and finally channeling social imagination of the proper political order of the world.⁶¹ In the following, I briefly discuss five selected cases: two royal estates near Cusco, two administrative centers in outlying regions, as well as one governance center in a peripheral area of the empire.

The regions surrounding Cusco were dotted by small settlements related to the Inka state in various ways. One type of settlement consisted of royal estates or country palaces of individual rulers, which included residential and ceremonial buildings, small-scale public spaces, gardens, and agricultural terraces. These were private properties of the rulers and their panaqas and did not belong to the state. The ruler and his private court moved there at certain times and a permanent resident population maintained the estate in his absence. The Urubamba Valley with a warm climate and fertile agricultural lands was the first choice for many rulers to construct their country estates. Some of Pachakuti’s private properties line this valley, among them Machu Picchu. Pachakuti’s estate of Machu Picchu shares some of the features diagnostic of Inka Cusco. The road from Cusco descends the ridge south of the site and enters the agricultural sector below Machu Picchu mountain. Nestled within the terrace system is a kallanka overlooking a plaza with a carved rock on a lower terrace (figure 6.4). Here the terrace construction creates the open space of an asymmetrical plaza. The rock is often referred to as the Ceremonial Rock.⁶² Unlike Awkaypata and Kusipata, which mark the very center of Cusco, this plaza is situated outside the wall, which features the official entrance gateway to Machu Picchu. The material evidence of large numbers of potsherds from drinking vessels found in the plaza⁶³ suggests that drinking chicha was a common activity. The consumption of chicha was and is an important component of Andean feasting and ritual and it seems very reasonable to argue that Pachakuti organized such festivities for agricultural workers who did not live inside the perimeter wall of his estate and other local people from the surrounding area.⁶⁴ The Ceremonial Rock was beautifully sculpted into platforms and steps and could have functioned as a seat and altar during such rituals. Wright and Valencia Zegarra note that some round rocks strewn around this boulder sculpture come from the Urubamba River to make the sacred river that gushes deep below and the watery underworld present.⁶⁵ All these observations suggest that the Ceremonial Rock played the role of an usnu.

Figure 6.4. Above: Machu Picchu, kallanka. (Photograph by Brian Garrett) Below: Machu Picchu, view from the kallanka to the plaza with the Ceremonial Rock. (Photograph by Brian Garrett)

There is no documentation regarding spatial divisions within Machu Picchu. Many writers have assumed that the western sector, including the temples and the potential Royal Residence, was equal to Hanan and that the eastern sector comprising the kanchas and the Condor Compound corresponded to Hurin (figure 6.5). Such reasoning is based solely upon differences in elevation. Along similar lines, I argue that Machu Picchu probably had a local zeq’e system. This is the only reasonable explanation for the many small outliers that dot the surrounding hillsides, valleys, and ridges. Many of the Machu Picchu zeq’e lines would have been based primarily upon visibility and secondarily upon physical trails, as Johan Reinhard has amply documented in his discussion of Machu Picchu and its surrounding mountains and outliers.⁶⁶ Both hypotheses are visible but lack specific written confirmation in any historical sources.

Figure 6.5. Machu Picchu, distant view showing potential Hanan and Hurin division. (Photograph courtesy of Bernhard Bell)

The second royal estate to be considered is Chinchero, the well-documented property of Thupa Inka Yupanki. Chinchero was organized around a Great Plaza and Structure 11 and several carved rocks form its southeastern corner.⁶⁷ Structure 11 was built over a natural outcrop, resulting in a pyramidal volume that consists of four platform levels. The carved outcrop Pumaccacca constitutes the focal point of Structure 11 and sits approximately at its center. The carvings are vertical and horizontal cuts forming planes and two sculpted pumas with crossed legs (figure 6.6). Pumaccacca has to be understood in relation to four other carved rocks situated on the level of the plaza, on the third platform, and on top of the outcrop on and around which Structure 11 was built.

Figure 6.6. Chinchero, Great Plaza with Structure 11 and Pumaccacca outcrop. (Photograph by Brian Garrett)

The south side of the Plaza is lined by Structures 1, 2, and 3. In particular, Structures 1 and 3 form long rectangles that open to the Plaza with six (Structure 1) and seven (Structure 3) double-jamb windows or entryways (figure 6.7). They exhibit the general characteristics of kallankas and I think at least Structures 1 and 3 fall into this category. The hillside below the Great Plaza exhibits a sophisticated terrace system at the bottom of which passes the Inka road from Cusco to the Urubamba valley. Several carved outcrops are interspersed in the terraces. Thus the major diagnostics Chinchero shares with Cusco are the Great Plaza faced by kallanka buildings and a potential usnu, which in the Chinchero case is the sculpted rock Pumaccacca enveloped by Structure 11.

Figure 6.7. Chinchero, Great Plaza with kallanka buildings. (Photograph by Brian Garrett)

Strong candidates for copies of Cusco among administrative centers in outlying regions are Huanuco Pampa and Vilcashuaman. Huanuco Pampa is situated in the northern highlands on the qhapaq nan (north-south imperial road) and was investigated by Craig Morris (figure 6.1).⁶⁸ It has a large plaza with a dominant usnu platform near its center (figure 6.8).⁶⁹ Elite architecture understood as the palace complex of the Inka ruler and/or local governor borders the east side of the plaza and is known as Sector IIB. The entrance to this elite sector passes between two kallankas.⁷⁰ Sector IIB is composed of a series of patio enclosures used for feasting, with increasingly restricted access as one moves from the plaza to the inner patios. The gateways leading to the individual enclosures are aligned with the usnu platform in the plaza. The design of Huanuco Pampa clearly copies the Cusco plaza.

Figure 6.8. Huanuco Pampa, plan with photograph of the alignment between the usnu and Sector IIB. (Adapted from Hyslop, Inka Settlement Planning, photograph by Brian Garrett)

The layout of Huanuco Pampa further uses many of the spatial divisions developed in Cusco.⁷¹ The qhapaq nan cuts through the city in a southeast-northwest direction, establishing two spatial halves that Morris and Hyslop associate with Hanan and Hurin. Each half is subdivided into two sectors defined by tripartite groupings of buildings created by straight walls and streets. According to this reasoning, Huanuco Pampa was organized into four parts, which Morris and Hyslop correlate with the Cusco suyu.⁷² Tripartite hierarchies of the zeq’e system are possibly reflected in the tripartite groupings of buildings in each quadrant.

Further south and also located along the qhapaq nan was the administrative center of Vilcaswaman, which Cieza de León⁷³ describes as the geographical middle or center of the Inka empire because the distance from Quito to Vilcaswaman was said to equal the distance from Vilcaswaman to Chile. According to Cieza de León,⁷⁴ Pachakuti began construction at Vilcaswaman and Thupa Inka enlarged it and commissioned additional buildings.

The contemporary sloping trapezoidal plaza corresponds with the Inka plaza, which was crossed by the qhapaq nan. The elevated south side of the plaza was crowned by a Temple of the Sun, which is now the Church San Juan Bautista. One block to the west of the plaza rises an usnu that originally consisted of five stepped platforms. This usnu was set into a walled compound and was probably accessed through three double-jamb doorways.⁷⁵ The surviving central door opens directly to the single stairway, which leads to the top platform of the usnu where a cube-like stone block with two precisely cut seats still stands (figure 6.9). The remains of a kallanka-type structure are found behind the usnu, which forms part of a palace compound. Although the Cusco diagnostics of a plaza crossed by a major road and nearby usnu and kallanka structures are clearly present at Vilcaswaman, their spatial layout constitutes a variation of the Cusco model.

Figure 6.9. Vilcaswaman, usnu. (Photograph by Brian Garrett)

Vilcabamba the Old serves as the case study of a peripheral governance center. It is also chronologically the latest example since it was Manqo Inka’s (1516–1544) last refuge, where he built a new capital that vied to take the place of Cusco.⁷⁶ Vilcabamba the Old was first documented by Vincent Lee⁷⁷ and is under ongoing investigation by the Ministerio de Cultura (at least since 2005 through 2015). Nicole Delia Legnani has reinforced that Vilcabamba was envisioned as a new Cusco and new Inka center of Qhapaq status in her reading of the Titu Cusi manuscript: for example, because Manqo Inka transferred the Sun idol Punchaw from Cusco to Vilcabamba.⁷⁸ Punchaw had been commissioned by Pachakuti and embodied the belief that the Inka were descendants of Inti, the Sun, and it was further coupled with the Inka’s sacred right of territorial expansion. Given the fact that the entire site was covered by dense jungle, the surveying and mapping work Lee undertook is absolutely remarkable. At the same time, as excavations by the Ministerio de Cultura and Bauer (2015) have continued, some of Lee’s plans have to be altered. According to Lee, Vilcabamba the Old was divided into a physically upper and lower sector of buildings. Roughly in between these sectors the main road entered from the southeast: it passes by fountains that have run dry, crosses a stream, and after being squeezed in tightly between Building Groups 14 and 15, it opens into the main plaza (figure 6.10). This plaza is bordered by Groups 16 and 17 in the southwest and northeast and by a long kallanka hall in the northwest. Lee interprets Groups 14 and 16 as hanan (upper) and 15 and 17 as hurin (lower) sectors in the context of the plaza.⁷⁹ On the northeast side of the kallanka and connected to it by a wall sits a large unmodified boulder. It measures nearly 8 m by 12 m across and 5 m high, and Lee thinks it may be oriented “toward the ushnu-like platform of Group 16.”⁸⁰ I find this association too speculative, since the platform of Group 16 is really a terrace accessed by a short stairway, whose function is that of a platform foundation for a kancha formation of houses. The prominence of the boulder and its connection with high-status architecture are unquestionable. It has to be repeated that Vilcabamba is situated in deep lowland jungle, a natural environment unfamiliar to the Inka. High mountains are absent and their symbolic connotations most likely poorly understood by local people. Therefore, it is significant that Manqo Inka placed or left the boulder⁸¹ in such a prominent spot.

Figure 6.10. Vilcabamba the Old (Espiritu Pampa), plan drawing. (Adapted from Vincent Lee 2000)

I argue that this boulder took the role of the usnu in the Vilcabamba version of the plaza-kallanka-usnu pattern. Although the boulder was unfit to be used as a performance stage, it shared the ideological qualities of stone material with its usnu prototype.⁸² If the main road entering from the southeast truly divided the core area into Hanan and Hurin sectors, a bipartite division similar to those documented for Cusco would be present.⁸³ Even though investigations are ongoing, the evidence discussed confirms that Manqo Inka attempted to construct his version of Cusco. It serves to underscore the innate authority of the Cusco model, lasting into the decades before the final collapse of the empire.

Conclusions

The foregoing discussion has demonstrated that Cusco was not a closed and clearly delimited capital, such as, for example, the Middle Horizon capitals of Tiwanaku and Huari as well as the Chimu capital of Chan Chan appear to have been. On the contrary, diagnostic architectural and sculptural features of Cusco were exported along roads and zeq’e lines and reproduced in multiple locations. This kind of emulation is strikingly different from the emulation of Classic Maya architectural templates and results in distinct geopolitical relations: while the latter appear to have been copied by smaller centers for reasons of prestige to align themselves with the authoritative model, Inka architectural templates were imposed by the state.⁸⁴

The political landscape of Cusco might be viewed as the Inka analog to the Aymara space-time concept taypi, which signifies a primordial center and its central place, taypi qala, meaning “central stone,” which was evoked by the Cusco usnu. Therese Bouysse-Cassagne and Olivia Harris brilliantly explain the complex and overlapping concepts of time and space in the Aymara worldview.⁸⁵ The first era was called taypi and it marked the time of creation when Tunupa or Wiraqocha called forth the Sun and the Moon from a rock outcrop on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca and shaped the first humans from clay at Tiwanaku. Each group received its specific dress, language, songs, and food, and with these provisions they were sent underground to travel in various directions and to reemerge at their designated local origin places, such as caves, hilltops, and springs. Bouysse-Cassagne and Harris emphasize that this first era is characterized by a first state of concentration in the taypi followed by a state of spatial diffusion to various origin places.⁸⁶

I argue that the Inka coopted this interwoven time-space concept designated by the word pacha in Aymara as well as in Quechua. Sometime during the process of state formation, the Inka also constructed a history for themselves by appropriating the pan-Andean creation narratives surrounding Lake Titicaca and Tiwanaku and by inserting their dynastic ancestors Manqo Qhapaq and Mama Oqllu as the first people called forth by the deities. Similarly they reconceptualized the sacred rock outcrop on the Island of the Sun from which the Sun, Moon, Manqo Qhapaq, and Mama Oqllu emerged in the Cusco usnu. The usnu became the Inka taypi qala and was surrounded by the performance space of the Awkaypata and Kusipata plazas. Thus Cusco was fabricated as a new taypi, the primordial power center of the creation of a state. As the physical layout of the Inka capital took form, a process of spatial diffusion was slowly initiated by the construction of the road system and administrative centers with Cusco diagnostic features. I argue that the redesign of Cusco into the imperial capital created a new Inka taypi and chronologically corresponded with the time of state formation and the period of concentration of power in a centralized capital. After Cusco had fully assumed its administrative and ritual roles, the process of spatial diffusion of imperial power became exemplified by military conquests, road construction, extension of zeq’e lines, and the building of outlying governance centers as local variants of Cusco. It becomes clear that the Inka produced a political landscape of complex relations: they replicated the concept of taypi to validate their economic, political, and ritual relations with conquered tribes.

The replication of Cusco’s spatial divisions may also be approached from a more practical perspective. In 1976, Pierre Duviols thoroughly analyzed the qhapaq ucha⁸⁷ rituals and raised the important question of how the qhapaq ucha parties returning from Cusco to their territories could possibly walk in straight lines following extended suyu divisions and serve all the wak’as in their provinces. He suggests that all Inka settlements likely shared the suyu division and the zeq’e system with Cusco.⁸⁸ If so, Inka imperial landscape would indeed have been constructed as a quilt of micro- and macro-units of the suyu quadrants and zeq’e radial centers. Duviols speculates that the planning of such a grid-like political landscape may have been one of the reorganizations undertaken by Pachakuti.⁸⁹

Further, there is multifaceted evidence that the Cusco zeq’e system was not the only one. The concept of ray centers apparently first developed among the Nasca people on the south coast.⁹⁰ Nasca culture thrived during the Early Intermediate Period (ca.100–700 CE) and their heartland was situated on the Pacific south coast between the drainage of the Ingenio and Nasca Rivers and reaching into adjacent river valleys. The Nasca are best known for their famous geoglyphs, created by scraping dark gravel from the lighter-colored surface of the pampa. While many geoglyphs form figures of animals, plants, and humans, the great majority are straight lines, many of which depart from hilltops functioning as ray centers. Unlike in the Cusco zeq’e system, there was not one single pivotal point, such as the Qorikancha, from which all lines spread out. In fact, Aveni identified around sixty separate line centers.⁹¹ Further, Nasca lines were not dotted by shrines; only their endpoints were frequently marked by stone cairns. Nevertheless the spatial concept of a radial design predates the Inka by a thousand years, yet the Nasca lines lack direct ethnographic context.

There is substantial ethnohistoric evidence that numerous settlements had zeq’e systems when the Spaniards arrived in Peru in the sixteenth century. The most notable evidence comes from Cristóbal de Albornoz, who described and documented many wak’as of the Inka Empire and their spatial relations, and from Polo de Ondegardo, who investigated the Cusco zeq’e system as well as others in different parts of the highlands.⁹²

Further, most zeq’e lines probably did not terminate at the last wak’as on Cobo’s list, the locations of which roughly correspond with the horizon line of Cusco. Rather they extended outward, overlapped with or turned into roads, and were envisioned to continue on to the confines of the empire. Two such extended zeq’e lines have been reconstructed in the regions to the southeast and west of Cusco. Zuidema⁹³ has examined the southeastern line that led from Cusco to the Vilcanota pass. Following Molina, he reasons that the priests traveled a straight path from Cusco to Vilcanota, visiting nine wak’as. After serving the Vilcanota wak’a, they returned to Cusco following the Vilcanota River and presenting offerings to additional wak’as. Today the Vilcanota pass is called La Raya and separates the departments of Cusco and Puno. In Inka times, it marked the boundary between the Inka of Cusco and the many groups subsumed under the name “Kolla” of the Lake Titicaca Basin. The western line was investigated by Bauer and Barrionuevo Orosco in the Anta region.⁹⁴ Their research concentrated on identifying the wak’as listed by Albornoz on the ground and they came up with eighteen possible matches for his twenty-two recorded shrines. Plotting the eighteen locations on a map, they found that two sets of three shrines are aligned on two parallel east-west lines and at the same time follow the general course of the qhapaq nan of Chinchaysuyu. These two sets of three shrines may have been sections of two zeq’e lines originating in Anta.

In sum, there is multidimensional evidence that the diagnostic architectural and sculptural features of Cusco as well as the urban design were not restricted to the capital but were exported to all parts of the empire to compose a political landscape of economic, ritual, and ideological relations. This export was a process that physically transpired through the far-flung Inka road system. The roads, however, were not simply utilitarian infrastructure but they overlapped with, turned into, or played the double role of pilgrimage routes and extended zeq’e lines marked by stone wak’as. I borrow the metaphor used by Michael Sallnow that the roads and zeq’e lines were the pulsating arteries of the Inka state through which human sacrificial blood, transported in its living victims or in sacred vessels (see qhapaq ucha rites), economic resources such as agricultural crops and tribute (cloth, ceramics), as well as military might were recirculated between the capital, as the heart, and its copies in the provincial centers as its vital organs.⁹⁵ In this manner, the relations between the capital center and its peripheries were orchestrated so that rural people would have experienced the presence of the state by witnessing road traffic, by their visits to local centers, and by their participation in organized events. On the level of these local centers, regional authorities and planners (kurakas and governors) commissioned local constructions that they perceived as the diagnostic features of Cusco and engaged with the hinterland populations along terms and conditions set by the state. Finally this imperial landscape of relations between Cusco and the periphery was masterminded by the Inka state as personified by Pachakuti and his successors, who imagined it as a strategic mechanism that would assist in integrating their growing empire and eventually the entire world.⁹⁶