Cuzco, Inca Valley merit exploration

By Sara Benson
LONELY PLANET

Article Launched: 04/22/2007 03:14:14 AM PDT
The high-flying Andean capital of Cuzco is the gateway to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, South America's premier tourist destination. Each year more than a million foreign visitors pass through Q'osqo (as it's known in the indigenous Quechua language), but few pause long enough to explore this Peruvian city once ruled by Inca kings and Spanish conquistadors.
Start at the nerve center of the colonial city, the Plaza de Armas. Once the site of an Inca palace, for centuries it has been lorded over by La Catedral, a jewel box of art that blends Catholic beliefs with indigenous Andean traditions. In Marcos Zapata's "The Last Supper," roast cuy (guinea pig) is a featured dish in the holy Christian feast.

Narrow alleyways beside the plaza are buttressed by complexly crafted Inca stonework. During ancient times the Incas' chosen Virgins of the Sun were housed behind these walls. Nearby are the ruins of Qorikancha, the "Golden Courtyard," once the Inca empire's richest temple. Before it was looted by Spanish conquistadors, some say it was literally covered in gold.

Pre-Columbian art

Exquisite artifacts from Peru's varied ancient cultures are displayed in the Museo de Arte Precolombino (Pre-Columbian Art Museum), housed in a Spanish colonial mansion built over a sacred Inca site. The more modest Museo Inka harbors mummies, pottery, jewelry and the world's largest collection of queros (Inca ceremonial drinking vessels). Andean highland weavers demonstrate their craft in the courtyard.
With their eyes set solely on Machu Picchu, many visitors miss not only the back streets of Cuzco, but also El Valle Sagrado, the "Sacred Valley" of the Incas. Lying just outside the city, the idyllic valley is flush with archaeological ruins, hot springs, colonial towns with quaint cobblestone streets, hectic highland markets and wide-open countryside ripe for adventure sports.

Valley of Incas

The most convenient jumping-off point is Ollantaytambo, where trains to Machu Picchu stop. An Inca village that has been inhabited continuously since the 13th century, Ollantaytambo is overshadowed by the ruins of a massive temple and fortress where the Incas made their last stand against the Spanish conquistadors before retreating deep into the Amazon jungle. The town's Museo CATCCO hosts artisan workshops and ethnographic exhibits on kaleidoscopic highland festivals.

The fertile Inca agricultural terraces of Moray and salt pans of Salinas are a short taxi ride from Urubamba, the valley's hub for adventure sports. Outfitters can arrange rides on graceful Peruvian paso horses, hot-air-balloon flights and paragliding over the Andes or guided hikes, bird-watching trips and river-rafting adventures.

The markets of Pisac and Chinchero attract hundreds of foreign visitors and Peruvian villagers alike. Pisac's Sunday market is filled with tour buses and locals in traditional dress, while the town's clay-oven bakeries are famous for their castillos de cuyes (miniature guinea pig castles). The ruins of Pisac's Inca citadel, with ceremonial baths and honeycomb tombs, is perched above the dizzying Rio Kitamayo gorge. The hamlet of Chinchero has a less frenzied Sunday market, but also an exquisite colonial church and a local archaeology museum.

Inca fortress

The valley's most famous site, Saqsaywaman, is a challenging uphill walk from Cuzco's Plaza de Armas along a winding Inca road. The imposing fort is known not only for its zigzag fortifications, but also for the grand pageantry of the Inti Raymi festival, an Inca winter solstice celebration, held every June 24.

Wherever you spend an extra day or two en route to Machu Picchu, you won't regret it. Little-known ancient ruins, colonial treasures and vibrant Andean villages await.

If you go


Places to stay: Uphill from Cuzco's Plaza de Armas, Hostal Rumi Punku (www.rumipunku.com, 011-51-84-22-1102, doubles from $40) has authentic Inca stonework, a rooftop terrace and a Finnish sauna. The 99-room Novotel Cusco (www.novotel.com, 011-51-84-58-1030, doubles from $130) inhabits an elegant colonial courtyard, where each of the historic wing's rooms are unique. Next to the Qorikancha ruins, Hotel Libertador Palacio del Inka (www.libertador.com.pe, 011-51-84-23-1961, doubles from $190) is an opulent mansion -- Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro once slept here -- set upon rock-solid Inca foundations.

Places to eat: Cuzco's cobblestone streets are full of inviting eateries. In a garden courtyard with a crackling fire pit, Pachapapa (Plaza San Blas 120) serves classic Peruvian dishes, from Cuzquenan lamb stew to roasted wild trout with quinoa pancakes, plus fruity pisco (Peruvian brandy) cocktails. Inka Panaka (Tandapata 140) nearby is the place for nouveau Andean cooking. The more casual Inkafe Cafe (Choquechaca 140) specializes in regional fare, including hard-to-find highland desserts. The sophisticated restaurant Map Cafe, in the courtyard of the Museo de Arte Precolombino, serves such eclectic gourmet delights as guinea pig confit and alpaca steaks.

Ancient Peruvian metallurgy studied

EDMONTON, Alberta, April 19 (UPI) -- A Canadian-led study has reported the first scientific evidence that ancient Peruvian civilizations in the central Andes Mountains smelted metals.

The study by the University of Alberta's Colin Cooke and colleagues also determined that a tax imposed on local people by ancient Inca rulers might have forced a switch from production of copper to silver.

The researchers said prior evidence of metal smelting was limited mainly to the existence of metal artifacts dating to about 1,000 A.D. and the Wari Empire that preceded the Incas. The new evidence emerged from a study of metallurgical air pollutants released from ancient furnaces during the smelting process and deposited in lake sediments.

By analyzing metals in the sediments, the researchers recreated a 1,000-year history of metal smelting in the area, predating Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors by 600 years.

The findings suggest smelters in the Morococha region of Peru switched from producing copper to silver about the time Inca rulers imposed a tax, payable in silver, on local populations.

The study is scheduled for the May 15 issue of the American Chemical Society's semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

New Archaeological Findings On Political Power In Peru

Science Daily — A team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the University of Almería has completed its second part of the "Proyecto La Puntilla", an archaeological expedition to the Peruvian province of Nazca, where last year it discovered a new type of construction. The latest findings show that a new political power based on the exercise of violence emerged on the south coast of Peru two thousand years ago. There was a State in which an aristocracy, based in Cahuachi, exercised its dominion on other, poorer communities in the Nazca Valley. The team has also observed practices such as cranial deformation.

The excavations at the necropolis of El Trigal have uncovered new information on the repercussions of the emergence of the State in southern Peru. The archaeologists have found that El Trigal graves are very simple, in contrast with the extravagant tombs of the aristocracy around Nazca.

The situation shows the poverty that existed among the community in El Tribal. The dominant group in the State of Cahuachi imposed the transfer of wealth through taxes and other means. This explains the poverty of those living in the area of La Puntilla.

A settlement was established in El Trigal about 3000 years ago. Several centuries later, this had become an economically strong community with a vast network of relations with other territories. This hypothesis is backed up by the presence of valuable Spondylus shells (probably from the distant coasts of what today we know as Ecuador), obsidian (from the mountains), and craft tools, such as the boat decorated with the style known as Ocucaje 8 (possibly manual workers in the north).

However, the necropolis excavated in El Trigal, dated as being from the first century AD, represents a later period of decline and pauperisation in the community, coinciding with the emergence of Cahuachi.

This data confirms that 1900 years ago a State existed in the Nazca Valley based in the monumental settlements of Cahuachi, where pyramids were built. Those governing Cahuachi belonged to one of the groups who shared control over the south coast of Peru, such as the aristocratic group described in the Paracas necropolis (near Pisco), in the same area.

The dominant class in Cahuachi controlled the communities in the Nazca Valley using violence, forcing the communities to economically sustain the group in power. Between those communities were those that occupied the area known as La Puntilla, to the east of Nazca, where the research team has been excavating for the past two years.

Cranial deformation

One of the key findings at the necropolis was that some of the bodies found in the tombs have undergone certain manipulations. One such manipulation was cranial deformation in order to obtain an "elongated skull", and this has been observed in one of the corpses.

This practice took place during childhood by using wooden objects to put pressure on the skull. "Elongated skulls" are characteristic of the aristocracy buried in the tombs in Paracas, and a number of studies suggest that this treatment was a way of distinguishing dominant groups. This is why it is so significant that this characteristic has been found in an individual buried at the necropolis of a poor community in the Nazca Valley.

This discovery opens up a series of other questions: Is this the member of a family belonging to the dominant group? Or is the practice unrelated to a person's affiliation with a group? Was it a way of identifying individuals who took part in specific activities (for example, shamanism)?

In another tomb, another interesting case has been found. Alongside the corpse of a woman, they have found the legs and feet of another individual. We know that decapitation and dismemberment were frequent among the first states of the region, so we cannot discard the possibility that this was an intentional act.

The fieldwork in this second part of the "Proyecto La Puntilla" ended in December, and the material and human remains uncovered are now being studied. The research will be amplified through a programme to analyse the DNA in order to find evidence on the affiliation of those individuals buried at the necropolis.

The "Proyecto La Puntilla" is funded by the General Directorate for Fine Arts and Cultural Assets of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and by the Catalan Department of Education and Universities. The project is also recognised by the National Institute for Culture of Peru. The research team consists of archaeologists and students from Spain, Peru, Chile, Argentina, France and Italy.

New Understanding Of Human Sacrifice In Early Peru

Published by Science Daily — A study published in the August/October issue of CurrentAnthropology, reports on new archaeological evidence regarding theidentities of human sacrifice victims of the Moche society of Peru.

The Moche was a complex society whose influence extended over mostof the North coast of Peru between AD 200 and 650. They are widelyknown for their life-like mold-made ceramics, beautiful metallurgy, mudbrick pyramids, and iconographic depictions of one-on-one combatbetween Moche warriors. In recent years archaeologists had uncoveredevidence of the sacrifice of adult males at a number of Moche pyramids.What has remained unclear until now is who these sacrificial victimswere. Largely due to the nature of iconographic depictions of Mochecombat most scholars have speculated that the sacrifices were largelyrituals among local Moche elites, the primary goal of which was toprovide human victims for sacrificial ceremonies.

However, this newly published study by Richard Sutter and Rosa Cortezcompares genetically influenced tooth cusp and root traits for theMoche sacrificial victims from a pyramid at the Moche capital withthose of other North Coast populations. The findings of thisarchaeological comparison indicate that the sacrificial victims werenot local Moche elite. Instead they were likely warriors captured fromnearby valleys. When this result is considered in light of otherarchaeological and skeletal lines of evidence it suggests that theMoche populations in each valley were characterized by territorialconflict and competition with one another.

Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research,Current Anthropology is a transnational journal devoted to research onhumankind, encompassing the full range of anthropological scholarshipon human cultures and on the human and other primate species.Communicating across the subfields, the journal features papers in awide variety of areas, including social, cultural, and physicalanthropology as well as ethnology and ethnohistory, archaeology andprehistory, folklore, and linguistics. For more information, please seeour website: www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA

"The Origins and Role of the Moche (AD 1-750) Human SacrificialVictims: A Bio-Archaeological Perspective." Richard Sutter and RosaCortez. Current Anthropology 46:4.

Peru's Nasca Lines Point To Water Sources, Suggest UMass Researchers

Source: University Of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: December 1, 2000
Published by Science Daily

AMHERST, Mass. - The ancient "Nasca lines" created on the desert floor by native peoples in Peru thousands of years ago may not just be works of art, according to a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts. The team, which includes hydrogeologist Stephen B. Mabee and archeologist Donald Proulx, suggests that some of the mysterious lines may in fact mark underground sources of water. The research project is detailed in the December issue of Discover magazine. The team also includes independent scholar David Johnson, an adjunct research associate in the department of anthropology at UMass, and geosciences graduate students Jenna Levin and Gregory Smith.

The lines were constructed in the desert in southwestern Peru about 1,500-2,000 years ago by the Nasca culture, prior to the invasion of the Incas. The lines, which are etched into the surface of the desert by removing surface pebbles to reveal the lighter sand beneath, depict birds and mammals, including a hummingbird, a monkey, and a man, as well as zigzags, spirals, triangles, and other geometric figures. Called "geoglyphs," the elaborate figures are located about 250 miles south of Lima, and measure up to 1.2 miles in length. Their meaning has been the object of centuries of speculation. Some experts have hypothesized that the figures had ceremonial or religious functions, or served as astronomical calendars. But a slate of scientific tests has led the UMass team to theorize that at least some of the geometric shapes mark underground water.

"Ancient inhabitants may have marked the location of their groundwater supply distribution system with geoglyphs because the springs and seeps associated with the faults provided a more reliable and, in some instances, a better-quality water source than the rivers. We're testing this scientifically," said Mabee. "The spatial coincidence between the geoglyphs and groundwater associated with underground faults in the bedrock offers an intriguing alternative to explain the function of some of the geoglyphs."

Proulx, who has studied the region for decades, notes that the symbols on the biomorphs (figures of animals, plants, and humans) and on Nasca pottery are almost identical. "There are representations of natural forces," he says, "Not deities in the Western sense, but powerful forces of sky and earth and water, whom they needed to propitiate for water and a good harvest."

The team has studied the drawings and taken water samples during three separate journeys to Peru, over the past five years. The research has been funded by a University of Massachusetts Healy grant, the National Geographic Society, and the H. John Heinz Charitable Trust.

"So far, the tests indicate that the underground faults provide a source of reliable water to local inhabitants. The water, in comparison with available river water, is better-quality in terms of pH levels, magnesium, calcium, chloride and sulfate concentrations," Mabee said.

Proulx carried out an archaeological survey of more than 128 sites in the drainage area, in conjunction with the geological research. His discoveries provided data for another piece of the puzzle many archaeological sites were constructed near water-bearing faults and used this important secondary source of water.

The team was able to map the water's sources, and found that in at least five cases, the wells and aquifers corresponded with geoglyphs and archaeological sites. "They always seem to go together," said Mabee.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of Massachusetts, Amherst.

New Archaeological Evidence Illuminates Inca Sun-Worship Ritual

Source: University Of Illinois At Chicago
Date: September 30, 1998
Published by Science Daily

Science Daily — University of Illinois at Chicago archaeologist Brian Bauer and colleagues have unearthed artifacts from sites in South America that shed light on how the Inca organized their sun-worship rituals and how they physically kept track of the sun's movements.

According to Bauer, "many scholars of Latin American antiquity believe that the Inca built large stone pillars to record the sun's horizon location at the June and December solstices, but archaeologists had not found physical evidence of the pillars and there had been no detailed investigation into the organization of the solstice rituals" -- until now.

During a survey of pre-Hispanic sites on the Island of the Sun, in Lake Titicaca, Bauer and colleagues David Dearborn of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and graduate student Matthew Seddon of the University of Chicago discovered the remains of two stone pillars. They also found a large platform area just outside the walls of a sanctuary on the island.

Archaeological and astronomical research, which the team presents in the Sept. 24 issue of Latin American Antiquity, suggests the Inca used the site to support the elites' claim to power through elaborate solar rituals, perhaps using two-tiered worship.

In the early 15th century the Inca empire -- the largest state to develop in the Americas -- expanded into the Lake Titicaca region in modern-day Peru and Bolivia and usurped the Island of the Sun from local control. The island and a sacred rock, which locals believed was the birthplace of the sun, had been the focus of worship for centuries, said Bauer. Under the Inca it became one of the most important pilgrimage centers in South America.

"The Inca nobility, as well as members of the general populace, journeyed to the island to worship and make offerings in a sanctuary plaza next to the sacred rock," said Bauer.

The team's research indicates that, on the June solstice, the Inca king and high priests of the empire assembled in a small plaza beside the sacred rock to witness the dramatic setting of the sun between the stone pillars. Their findings also indicate that, as the elites paid homage to the sun from within the sanctuary, lower-class pilgrims observed the event from a second platform outside the sanctuary wall. From the perspective of the lower-class pilgrims, the sun set between the stone pillars and directly over the ruling elite, who called themselves the children of the sun.

"We're proposing that the platform outside the sanctuary walls represents a segregation of the elite and non-elite classes of sun worship," said Bauer. "This adds a new dimension to the practice of the solar cult that was not distinctly recorded in accounts of similar state rituals in the imperial capital, Cusco.

"While both groups participated in solar worship, the non-elites simultaneously offered respect to the sun and the children of that deity. This physical segregation emphasized that the Inca alone had direct access to the powers of the sun," he said.

The researchers illustrate the layout of the Inca structures in a map. The two stone pillars were erected on a natural ridge 600 meters to the northwest of the sacred rock. The plaza adjacent to the sacred rock was rectangular in shape, roughly 80 meters long and 35 meters wide, with the long axis pointing in the direction of the June solstice sunset. A sanctuary wall to the south and east blocked access to the site, which could only be reached through a gate. The secondary plaza, accessible to all pilgrims, was just outside the sanctuary wall and about 250 meters southeast of the sacred rock plaza.

Bauer said the remnants of stone pillars are similar to pillars around Cusco, which were described by several Spanish chroniclers of the 16th century. Those pillars were large enough to be seen against the setting sun at a distance of 15 kilometers. One such set of pillars marked where the sun sets at the June solstice, which is the northernmost point at which the sun crosses the! horizon. Unfortunately, said Bauer, a combination of post-conquest looting and recent urban growth in the Cusco valley has destroyed the area where the Cusco pillars once stood.

Bauer and Dearborn's research on the Island of the Sun is a continuation of their long-standing joint research on Inca astronomy. They are the authors of Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient Andes (University of Texas Press), which examines the origins and organization of Inca astronomy in Cusco.

"The findings from the Island of the Sun is the first discovery and documentation of similar pillars outside the imperial capital of the Inca," said Bauer.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of Illinois At Chicago

Ancient Peruvian metallurgy studied

Published by Science Daily

EDMONTON, Alberta, April 19 (UPI) -- A Canadian-led study has reported the first scientific evidence that ancient Peruvian civilizations in the central Andes Mountains smelted metals.

The study by the University of Alberta's Colin Cooke and colleagues also determined that a tax imposed on local people by ancient Inca rulers might have forced a switch from production of copper to silver.

The researchers said prior evidence of metal smelting was limited mainly to the existence of metal artifacts dating to about 1,000 A.D. and the Wari Empire that preceded the Incas. The new evidence emerged from a study of metallurgical air pollutants released from ancient furnaces during the smelting process and deposited in lake sediments.

By analyzing metals in the sediments, the researchers recreated a 1,000-year history of metal smelting in the area, predating Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors by 600 years.

The findings suggest smelters in the Morococha region of Peru switched from producing copper to silver about the time Inca rulers imposed a tax, payable in silver, on local populations.

The study is scheduled for the May 15 issue of the American Chemical Society's semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.