Coricancha

For the mountain in Bolivia, see Quri Kancha (Bolivia). For the archaeological site of Intikancha in the Puno Region, Peru, see Intikancha. For the site in Costa Rica, see Curi Cancha Wildlife Refuge.

Coricancha

Qurikancha
Coricancha with Convent of Santo Domingo above
Shown within Peru
Location	Peru Cusco
Region	Andes
Coordinates	13°31′12″S71°58′32″W / 13.52000°S 71.97556°W / -13.52000; -71.97556
Type	Sanctuary
History
Periods	Late Horizon
Cultures	Inca
Site notes
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Part of	City of Cuzco
Criteria	Cultural: iii, iv
Reference	273
Inscription	1983 (7th Session)
Area	Latin America and the Caribbean

Depiction of Pachacuti worshipping Inti (god Sun) at Coricancha, in the 17th century second chronicles of Martín de Murúa.

Coricancha, ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]} Curicancha, ^[6] Koricancha, ^{[7] [8] [9] [10]} Qoricancha ^[11] or Qorikancha ^{[12] [13]} ("The Golden Temple," from Quechua quri gold; kancha enclosure) ^[14] was the most important temple in the Inca Empire, and was described by early Spanish colonialists. ^{[15] [16]} It is located in Cusco, Peru, which was the capital of the empire.

History

Originally named Intikancha or Intiwasi, ^[12] it was dedicated to Inti, and is located at the former Inca capital of Cusco. The High Priest resided in the temple and offered up the ordinary sacrifices, accompanied by superstitious rites, with the help of other priests. ^[17] Most of the temple was destroyed after the 16th-century war with the Spanish conquistadors, as settlers also took it apart to build their own churches and residences. Much of its stonework was used as the foundation for the seventeenth-century Santo Domingo Convent. It was built after the 1650 earthquake destroyed the first Dominican convent.

To construct Coricancha, the Inca used ashlar masonry, building from the placement of similarly sized cuboid stones that they hand cut and shaped for this purpose. ^[18] The use of ashlar masonry made the temple much more difficult to construct, as the Inca did not use any stone with a slight imperfection or break. ^[18] By choosing this masonry type, the Inca intentionally demonstrated the importance of the building through the extent of the labor necessary to build the structure. ^[18] Through the arduous labor needed to construct buildings with ashlar masonry, this form of construction came to signify the Inca's imperial power to mobilize and direct local labor forces. ^[18] The replication throughout Andean South America of Inca architectural techniques, such as those employed at Coricancha, expressed the extent of Inca control over a vast geographic region. ^[18]

Pachakutiq Inca Yupanqui rebuilt Cusco and the House of the Sun, enriching it with more oracles and edifices, and adding plates of fine gold. He provided vases of gold and silver for the Mama-cunas, nuns or cloistered women, to use in the veneration services. These celibate girls and women were mostly employed in weaving and in dyeing woollen cloth for the service of the temple, as well as in making chicha . ^[19] Finally, he took the bodies of the seven deceased Incas and adorned them with masks, head-dresses, medals, bracelets, and sceptres of gold, placing them on a golden bench. ^[20]

The walls were once covered in sheets of gold, ^[21] and the adjacent courtyard was filled with golden statues. Spanish reports tell of an opulence that was "fabulous beyond belief". When the Spanish in 1533 required the Inca to raise a ransom in gold for the life of their leader Atahualpa, most of the gold was collected from Coricancha. ^[22]

...the temple in the whole edifice was of excellent masonry, the stones very well placed and fixed. Some of the stones were very large. There was no mortar, either of earth or lime, but a sort of bitumen with which they used to fix their stones. The stones themselves are so well worked that no joining or cement can be seen. ^[23]

Acquisition by Spain

The Spanish colonists built the Convent of Santo Domingo on the site, demolishing the temple and using its foundations for the cathedral. They also used parts of the building for other churches and residences. Construction took most of a century. This is one of numerous sites where the Spanish incorporated Inca stonework into the structure of a colonial building. Major earthquakes severely damaged the church, but the Inca stone walls, built out of huge, tightly interlocking blocks of stone, still stand due to their sophisticated stone masonry. Nearby is an underground archaeological museum that contains mummies, textiles, and sacred idols from the site. ^[12]

Today, at the Convent of Santo Domingo, are four remaining rooms of the ancient temple with sloping walls, in which there can still be seen broken stone relics from the House of the Sun (Inti-huasi), consisting primarily of blocks of grey andesite stone, of diorite stone and of limestone rock that had been carved and formed into ceremonial niches, or used for walls and canals. In one of the blocks belonging to the second course of stones, three holes can be seen that possibly served to drain rainwater from the patio or from the chicha libation. According to the experiments conducted by Peruvian folklorist, Augusto León Barandiarán, one can hear the musical notes D , A and G when the holes are struck with an instrument. The outer wall of the temple is made up of blocks of pink and grey granite stone, the interior surface of which showing signs of a vitrified layer that allowed for the reflection of light at night. ^[24]

Inca astronomy

Inca constellations in the Milky Way

Similarities are found in the semicircular temples found in the Temple of the Sun in Cusco, the Torreon in Machu Picchu, and the Temple of the Sun in Písac. In particular, all three exhibit a "parabolic enclosure wall" of the finest stonework, as Bingham describes it. These structures were also used for similar purposes, including the observation of solstices and Inca constellations.

Within the Milky Way, which the Inca called mayu or Celestial River, the Inca distinguished dark area or clouds, which they called yana phuyu. These were considered silhouettes or shadows of animals drinking from the river water. Amongst the animals named by the Inca, was a llama extended from Scorpius to Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, in which those two stars formed the llama's eyes, or llamaq ñawin. A baby llama, llama-cría, was inverted underneath. To the left of the llamas is a red-eyed fox, atuq, which lies between Sagittarius and the tail of Scorpius. The tail of Scorpius is known as a storehouse, or qullqa. A partridge, yutu, was just below the Southern Cross, and a toad, hamp'atu, to the lower right. A serpent, machaguay, extends off to the right. ^{[25] [26] [27]}

During the Inti Raymi, the Sapa Inca and curacas would proceed from the Haucaypata, where they greeted the rising June solstice sun, to the inner court of the Coricancha. On a bench in the "sun room", the Sapa Inca sat with the mummies of his ancestors. This and other rooms were oriented northeast–southwest, shingled in gold plate, and embedded with emeralds and turquoise. Focusing the sun's rays with a concave mirror, the Sapa Inca would light a fire for the burnt sacrifice of llamas. Children were also sacrificed in certain circumstances; they were brought to Cusco following a ceque and huaca route of tribute. ^{[27] : 199–201}

The Coricancha is located at the confluence of two rivers, one of which being the Huatanay River which is now highly polluted. Here, according to Inca myth, is where Manco Cápac decided to build the Coricancha, the foundation of Cusco, and the eventual Inca Empire. According to Ed Krupp, "The Inca built the Coricancha at the confluence because that place represented terrestrially the organizing pivot of heaven." ^{[27] : 270–276}

Images

• 
  Coricancha, Convent of Santo Domingo, and courtyard (Intipampa)
• 
  A digital reconstruction of its base during the Inca period
• 
  One of the original rooms from the Inca period
• 
  A digital reconstruction of the room when it was filled with gold, according to the description of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
• 
  Ceiling ornament
• 
  Colonial Cusco School paintings, inside
• 
  Original trapezoid windows inside the temple

See also

• Convent of Santo Domingo, Cusco
• List of buildings and structures in Cusco
• Pedro Cieza de Leon's The Chronicle of Peru
• Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's Comentarios Reales de los Incas
• Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala's The First New Chronicle and Good Government
• Iperu, tourist information and assistance
• Tourism in Peru

References

1. Ring, Trudy; Watson, Noelle; Schellinger, Paul (2013). The Americas: International Dictionary of Historic Places. Routledge. p. 183. ISBN   9781134259304.
2. Krupp, E. C. (2012). Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations. Courier Corporation. pp. 271–272. ISBN   9780486137643.
3. Hyland, Sabine (2011). Gods of the Andes: An Early Jesuit Account of Inca Religion and Andean Christianity. Penn State Press. p. 8. ISBN   978-0271048802.
4. Bauer, Brian S. (1998). The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System. University of Texas Press. ISBN   9780292792043.
5. Bauer, Brian S. (2004). Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. University of Texas Press. pp. 139–158. ISBN   9780292792029.
6. de Leon, Pedro Cieza (1883). The second part of the Chronicle of Peru. Translated by Clements R. Markham. London: Hakluyt Society. p.  83. OCLC   706928387.
7. "Machu Picchu, la Eternidad de la Piedra". Edición Extraordinaria (in Spanish). 6 (9). Universidad Alas Peruanas: 79–87. 2011.
8. DK (2016). DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Peru. Penguin. p. 163. ISBN   9781465458919.
9. Inc, Encyclopaedia Britannica (2010). Native Peoples of the Americas. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. p. 74. ISBN   9781615353651.{{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
10. Compendio histórico del Perú (in Spanish). Editorial Milla Batres. 1993. pp. 586, 593.
11. "GRUPO ARQUEOLÓGICO DE QORICANCHA" . Retrieved 2017-05-29.
12. Qurikancha, A Homage to the Mystical, Magical, most Famous and Oldest City of the American Continent
13. Cristóbal Estombelo Taco, Inka taytanchiskunaq kawsay nintayacharispa, Instituto Superior Pùblico La Salle - PROYECTO CRAM II, Urubamba, Cusco 2002 (in Quechua)
14. Teofilo Laime Ajacopa (2007). Diccionario Bilingüe: Iskay simipi yuyayk’anch: Quechua – Castellano / Castellano – Quechua (PDF). La Paz, Bolivia: futatraw.ourproject.org.
15. Pedro Cieza de León (1883), The second part of the Chronicle of Peru (Crónicas del Perú), translator: Clements R. Markham, Hakluyt Society: London, pp. 83–86; 160–164 OCLC   706928387
16. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (2006). "XXXI". In Clements R. Markham (ed.). History of the Incas (Historia de los Incas). London: Hakluyt Society (prepared for Project Gutenberg). OCLC   84961506.
17. de Leon, Pedro Cieza (1883). The second part of the Chronicle of Peru. Translated by Clements R. Markham. London: Hakluyt Society. p.  86. OCLC   706928387.
18. Carolyn Dean, “The Inka Married the Earth: Integrated Outcrops and the Making of Place,” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 3 (2007): 502–18.
19. Pedro Cieza de León, The second part of the Chronicle of Peru (Crónicas del Perú), chapter VII, translator: Clements R. Markham, Hakluyt Society: London 1883, p. 85
20. de Gamboa, P.S. (2015), History of the Incas, Lexington, pp. 68–69, 75 ISBN   9781463688653
21. Prescott, W.H., 2011, The History of the Conquest of Peru, Digireads.com Publishing, pp. 218–219 ISBN   9781420941142
22. Cieza de León, Pedro (1998) [ca. 1553]. The Discovery and Conquest of Peru. Chronicles of the New World Encounter. Translated and edited by Alexandra Parma Cook and Noble David Cook. Duke University Press. p. 224. ISBN   0-8223-2146-7.
23. Cieza de León, Pedro (1883). The second part of the Chronicle of Peru (Crónicas del Perú). Translated by Clements R. Markham. London: Hakluyt Society. p.  84. OCLC   706928387.
24. The Coricancha Temple in Peru, Greatest Megaliths, Colossal Ancient Sites, Hidden in Plain Sight Series | Civilizations Box-set on YouTube, VIPORA TV, May 2020, minutes 1:16:36–1:21:25.
25. Dearborn, D.S.P.; White, R.E. (1983). "The "Torreon" of Machu Picchu as an Observatory". Archaeoastronomy. 14 (5): S37. Bibcode:1983JHAS...14...37D.
26. Bingham, Hiram (1952). Lost City of the Incas . Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp.  268-269. ISBN   9781842125854.
27. Krupp, Edwin (1994). Echoes of the Ancient Skies. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. pp. 47–51. ISBN   9780486428826.

External links

• Media related to Qurikancha at Wikimedia Commons
• “The Political Force of Images,” Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820.