Inca Ceremonial Site Uncovered in Central Peru
Inca Ceremonial Site Uncovered in Central Peru
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
LIMA, PERU—Peru’s Ministry of Culture announced that human remains have been unearthed in Hatun Xauxa, an Inca administrative and ceremonial center in the central Andean region of Junin. The burial site may be an offering related to the founding of the city. Walls bearing traces of red paint and dating to the first period of the city’s construction were also unearthed at the northern end of the ushnu, or sacred throne where liquids were poured out in offerings by the Incas. “These findings allow us to gauge the religious importance and the complex nature of activities in the ushnu of Hatun Xauxa, reflected also in the constant change in its architecture,” the ministry told The Global Post. Archaeologists will compare the well of offerings and burials at Hatun Xauxa with similar findings at the Huanuco Pampa site, an admistrative center related to the Qhapaq Ñan Inca road system. To read about an Incan ceremonial site in Ecuador, see ARCHAEOLOGY'S "The Water Temple of Inca-Caranqui."
http://www.archaeology.org/news/2581-141008-peru-inca-hatun-xauxa
(Link follows)
[center] ~ ~ ~ [/center]
The Water Temple of Inca-Caranqui
Was hydraulic engineering the key to winning the hearts and minds of a conquered people?
By JULIAN SMITH
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tamara Bray of Wayne State University walks through a municipal lot in a suburb of the colonial city of Ibarra, in the Andean highlands of northern Ecuador. At 7,550 feet on the northern slope of Imbabura Volcano, the equatorial sun has an intensity that burns through the occasional cool breeze. Chickens peck in the dirt and we can hear children playing at a school nearby. As we walk through the lot, which is now an archaeological site called Inca-Caranqui, Bray explains that the local people knew this was an ancient settlement long before the first archaeological surveys in the late 1990s. Just across the street stand two walls—one 130 feet long and the other 165—that were built by the Inca. One wall has traces of three trapezoidal doorways with remnants of plaster and pigments.
Ecuadorian archaeologist José Echeverría leads us through the site, down a winding path that follows the low outlines of partially excavated walls. He explains that, in 2006, he was helping clear debris left over from a brickmaking operation when he uncovered some Inca masonry at the east end of the site, which turned out to be part of a large ceremonial pool about 33 by 55 feet in size. It was dug to a depth of four to five feet below the modern ground level and was surrounded by walls about three feet high. The walls and floor were made of finely cut and fitted stone.
Two types of canals were used to bring water from the surrounding area into the site of Inca-Caranqui.
Bray and Echeverría believe the pool may date to a period in the early 1500s, shortly after the Inca ruler Huayna Capac had concluded a 10-year war of conquest against the local people, the Caranqui. Legend has it that Huayna Capac had every adult male Caranqui executed. Their bodies were thrown into a lake known today as Yahuarcocha, or the “Lake of Blood,” on Ibarra’s northeast edge. Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León estimated the conflict left 20,000 to 50,000 Caranqui dead.
Bray and Echeverría think that in the aftermath of that bloodshed, the Inca built the pool as part of a construction project that was meant to demonstrate their power to their new Caranqui subjects. The ceremonial pool would have represented a considerable investment of wealth and labor by the Inca. It also would have showed their skill as engineers by bringing water from as far as five and a half miles away and demonstrated their mastery over a resource with powerful religious symbolism.
More:
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/61-1301/features/324-ibarra-andes-huayna-capac-atahualpa
= new reply since forum marked as read
