Cuzco was a specialized city, quite unlike the urban centers of contemporary Europe or even most of its Central Andean counterparts. Its general features were as follows:
1 . It was the center of Empire and contained the related institutional architecture.
2. It contained the moieties of the Inca rulers and their retainers.
3. Its planning expresses its ritual and symbolic character as well as its administrative functions.
4. It was the center of the state religion, dedicated to Viracocha.
5. Its center was designed to stage the great festivals oif Inca religion and political power.
6. Its periphery held subjugated peoples in forced residence (rulers and mitmaq colonists).
7. It was the hub of the empire-wide communication system.
8. It was the hub of the administrative and ritual divisions of the empire.
9. It was not open for general residence.
10. Its layout and institutions were replicated in part by regional and local settlements as secondary components of the imperial system manifested by Cuzco.
1. Cuzco lies at 10,000 ft. in the Cuzco Valley of the central Andes. The elaborate city of the Inca capital was probably a small village prior to the 15th century, the center of a small local “simple” society like others in the region.
2. Archaeology demonstrates through the “Killke Complex” architecture similar to other Late Intermediate Period highland examples with rough stone walls, small settlements and rather coarse pottery. Killke material is distributed in and around Cuzco itself and in the nearby Urubamba Valley (later the Sacred Valley of imperial Inca times).
1. Cuzco as found by the Europeans in the 1530’s appears to have been a fairly recent establishment, probably by Pachakuti in the early 15th century. Its well-planned building complexes, streets and finely ashlar, polygonal-cut stonework covered the earlier simple Killke village.
2. 15th century Cuzco was a planned city composed of two main sectors:
– A central administrative and ceremonial area located between the Saphy and Tullumayo Rivers. In this sector stood the palaces and homes of the royal Inca moieties and their retainers, and the temples and other administrative centers of the Empire.
- A large outer area of less dense architecture and fields occupied by lesser Inca groups, Inca-by-privilege, subjugated leaders, their retainers and transplanted state workers from the provinces.
3. We have considerably more information about the central area than the peripheral both in terms of written description and of archaeology.
1. The symbolic and “special” quality of Cuzco was immediately apparent through its overall shape – that of a puma, an Andean animal possessing significant supernatural power. The head was at the great architectural complex of Saqsawaman with its tail being the confluence of the Saphy (Huatanay) and Tullumayo Rivers.
2. The center was divided into two segments separated by the southern side of the Great Plaza and occupied respectively by the hanan (north) and hurin (south) moieties of the Inca. Each moiety contained 5 kin groups (the equivalent of the Andean ayllu termed the Inca panaqas). Each of these 10 panaqas was at least mythically associated with a former Inca ruler (possible earlier moiety heads for the Killke period prior to the formation of the Empire).
3. Central Cuzco contained the architectural sites of political and central power for the entire empire.
1. The Great Plaza partially included the present Plaza des Armas of Cuzco. It was divided into two segments in the Andean duality manner, the Kusipata (now covered by later construction) and the Huaskaypata. The River Saphy separated the two segments.
2. A thick level of sea sand covered the plaza; this ritually located the Sea (origin of all water and life) at the center of Inca religious and political power, connecting it to the ruling order.
3. A sacred Usnu (ritual stone similar to an altar - the physical focus of religious ritual where the ruler officiated) stood at the center of the Plaza as the focus for state and dynastic religious and cult practices.
Point of Road Convergence.
1. Four major roads converged on the Great Plaza. These were the main roads to the four suyu (quarters) of the Inca Empire. From the central plaza (the symbolic and functional center of the Empire) these roads led to the Four Quarters of Tiwantinsuyu (Land of the Four Quarters):
- Kuntisuyu (West)
- Chinchasuyu (North)
- Antisuyu (East)
- Collasuyu (South)
2. This pattern of roads converging on the main square and thus symbolically as well as actually dividing the community and its lands into suyu continues to this day in highland communities where the four quarters of the sky (delineated by the movement of the Mayu) is repeated in the human social world through kinship and settlement division.
3. While the four roads are part of an orthogonal street plan in central Cuzco, they run through and into a more radial pattern in the peripheral areas leading to the surrounding farmlands.
1. Surrounding the Great Plaza, large blocks of buildings consisting of the characteristic stone-built kallanka arranged in rectangular compounds or kanchas, held the royal palaces, the centers of royal panaqa activity, administrative complexes, the work and home areas of the aklla wasi (chosen women) and religious complexes.
2. A very important structure, large parts of which survive, is the Qori Kancha (Coricancha), the major temple to the supreme state divinity Viracocha (the Sun). Now incorporated into the Church of Santo Domingo, the Qori Kancha was the center of state religion and featured many characteristics of Inca religious architecture and shrines in general. Thus intricate stone channels and basis ritually manipulated water through the structure, a practice associated with the movement of the life force through the symbolic center of the empire (see water association with the body metaphor).
1. The inner suburbs were mostly residential. These areas were apparently occupied by state workers, often drafted from provinces of the empire to work on official projects, junior members of the Inca moieties, and subjugated leaders who had been brought to the capital as a security measure.
2. Surrounding the city proper the periphery areas largely comprised extensive farming lands together with the villages of mitmaq agricultural workers from provinces of the empire. There is at present little archaeological information on these peripheral zones.
1. Located at the western extremity of Cuzco and overlooking the city, the massive architectural complex of Saqsawaman, was the “head of the puma,” probably playing an important role in the symbolic and ritual life of the city and the empire.
2. The specific functions of Saqsawaman are not known. However, according to later chronicles ritual battles were fought in its great plaza together with other festival of state.
3. On the basis of its location Saqsawaman may have been the chief ritual center of hanan (Upper) Cuzco just as the Qori Kancha was the chief religious structure of hurin Cuzco.
4. Whatever its actual function, it is probable that Saqsawaman was not a fortress as first characterized by the European invaders. Its complex internal architecture, with a circle of walls appearing to replicate in more formal architecture the sighting lines of ayllu village life today, probably had at least partial significance in the monitoring of the stellar bodies and their integration with the sacred geography of the empire.
1. The landscape was conceived as divided into segments by sighting lines or zeque lines radiating from the Usnu in the Great Plaza to prominent physical features around the horizon, the “imaginary” lines linking sacred places or huacas located along their length.
2. The landscape of Cuzco was divided into 4 quarters by the chief roads. Each quarter contained 3 groups of 3 zeques, demarcated by the sighting lines, totaling 41 in all. 328 huacas including sacred ancestral caves and shrines, springs etc. were distributed along the zeque lines forming the boundaries of ayllu, moiety and panaqa lands and their water sources.
3. By linking the sacred calendar of the sky with sacred geography on earth, and using the associated features with land ownership, descent groups and the ancestors, the zeque system integrated social, economic and political organization with cosmic order and the religious basis of the Andean world in an integrated and holistic experiential reality that could place every part of the Inca empire in its appropriate place.