Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of PeruBingham, Hiram
History
Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru
Bingham, Hiram
Incas; Peru -- Antiquities; Peru -- Description and travel
Until then I suggest as a possible working hypothesis that we have at
Piquillacta the remains of a pre-Inca city; that its chiefs and people
cultivated the Lucre Basin and its tributaries; that as a community
they were a separate political entity from the people of Cuzco;
that the ruler of the Cuzco people, perhaps an Inca, finally became
sufficiently powerful to conquer the people of the Lucre Basin, and
removed the tribes which had occupied Piquillacta to a distant part of
his domain, a system of colonization well known in the history of the
Incas; that, after the people who had built and lived in Piquillacta
departed, no subsequent dwellers in this region cared to reoccupy the
site, and its aqueduct fell into decay. It is easy to believe that
at first such a site would have been considered unlucky. Its houses,
unfamiliar and unfashionable in design, would have been considered not
desirable. Their high walls might have been used for a reconstructed
city had there been plenty of water available. In any case, the ruins
of the Lucre Basin offer a most fascinating problem.
In the Oropesa Basin the most important ruins are those of Tipon,
a pleasant, well-watered valley several hundred feet above the
village of Quispicanchi. They include carefully constructed houses
of characteristic Inca construction, containing many symmetrically
arranged niches with stone lintels. The walls of most of the houses
are of rough stones laid in clay. Tipon was probably the residence
of the principal chief of the Oropesa Basin. It commands a pleasant
view of the village and of the hills to the south, which to-day
are covered with fields of wheat and barley. At Tipon there is a
nicely constructed fountain of cut stone. Some of the terraces are
extremely well built, with roughly squared blocks fitting tightly
together. Access from one terrace to another was obtained by steps made
each of a single bonder projecting from the face of the terrace. Few
better constructed terrace walls are to be seen anywhere. The terraces
are still cultivated by the people of Quispicanchi. No one lives at
Tipon now, although little shepherd boys and goatherds frequent the
neighborhood. It is more convenient for the agriculturists to live
at the edge of their largest fields, which are in the valley bottom,
than to climb five hundred feet into the narrow valley and occupy the
old buildings. Motives of security no longer require a residence here
rather than in the open plain.
While I was examining the ruins and digging up a few attractive
potsherds bearing Inca designs, Dr. Giesecke, the President of the
University of Cuzco, who had accompanied me, climbed the mountain above
Tipon with Dr. Aguilar and reported the presence of a fortification
near its summit. My stay at Oropesa was rendered most comfortable
and happy by the generous hospitality of Dr. Aguilar, whose finca
is between Quispicanchi and Oropesa and commands a charming view of
the valley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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