Coricancha, Koricancha, Qoricancha or Qorikancha
(''"The Golden Temple,"'' from
Quechua ''quri'' gold; ''kancha'' enclosure)
[ was the most important temple in the ]Inca Empire
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...
. It is located in Cusco
Cusco, often spelled Cuzco (; qu, Qusqu ()), is a city in Southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru; ...
, Peru, which was the capital of the empire.
History
Originally named ''Intikancha'' or ''Intiwasi'',[''Qorikancha'']
A Homage to the Mystical, Magical, most Famous and Oldest City of the American Continent it was dedicated to Inti
INTI International University & Colleges are private university colleges located in Malaysia. The main campus was initially known as INTI University College until 31 May 2010 when the Higher Education Ministry announced its upgrade to universi ...
, and is located at the former Inca capital of Cusco
Cusco, often spelled Cuzco (; qu, Qusqu ()), is a city in Southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru; ...
. Most of the temple was destroyed after the 16th-century war with the Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...
s, 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
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
masonry, building from the placement of similarly sized cuboid stones that they had cut and shaped for this purpose.[Carolyn Dean, “The Inka Married the Earth: Integrated Outcrops and the Making of Place,” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 3 (2007): 502–18.] 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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.[de Gamboa, P.S., 2015, ''History of the Incas,'' Lexington, ]
The walls were once covered in sheets of gold,[Prescott, W.H., 2011, ''The History of the Conquest of Peru,'' Digireads.com Publishing, ] 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
Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa ( Quechua), Atabalica, Atahuallpa, Atabalipa (c. 1502 – 26-29 July 1533) was the last Inca Emperor. After defeating his brother, Atahualpa became very briefly the last Sapa Inca (sovereign emperor) of the Inca Em ...
, most of the gold was collected from Coricancha.
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
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
museum that contains mummies
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...
, textiles
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
, and sacred idols from the site.[
]
Inca astronomy
Similarities are found in the semicircular temples found in the Temple of the Sun in Cusco, the Torreon in Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain range.UNESCO World Heritage Centre. It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, whic ...
, and the Temple of the Sun in Písac
Písac or Pisac (possibly from Quechua for ''Nothoprocta'', also spelled ''p'isaqa'') is a Peruvian town in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. It is situated on the Vilcanota River. Pisac is most known for its Incan ruins and large market which ...
. 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 solstice
A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many count ...
s and Inca constellations.
Within the Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...
, 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
Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centa ...
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
Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for ...
, and a toad, ''hamp'atu,'' to the lower right. A serpent, ''machaguay,'' extends off to the right.
During the Inti Raymi, the Sapa Inca
The Sapa Inca (from Quechua ''Sapa Inka'' "the only Inca") was the monarch of the Inca Empire (''Tawantinsuyu''), as well as ruler of the earlier Kingdom of Cusco and the later Neo-Inca State. While the origins of the position are mythical and ...
and curaca
A ''kuraka'' (Quechua for the principal governor of a province or a communal authority in the Tawantinsuyu), or curaca (hispanicized spelling), was an official of the Inca Empire who held the role of magistrate, about four levels down from the Sa ...
s would proceed from the Haucaypata, where they greeted the rising June solstice
The June solstice is the solstice on Earth that occurs annually between 20 and 22 June according to the Gregorian calendar. In the Northern Hemisphere, the June solstice is the summer solstice (the day with the longest period of daylight), wh ...
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
In the Quechuan languages of South America, a huaca or wak'a is an object that represents something revered, typically a monument of some kind. The term ''huaca'' can refer to natural locations, such as immense rocks. Some huacas have been ass ...
route of tribute.[
The Coricancha is located at the ]confluence
In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...
of two rivers. Here, according to Inca myth, is where Manco Cápac
Manco Cápac ( Quechua: ''Manqu Qhapaq'', "the royal founder"), also known as Manco Inca and Ayar Manco was, according to some historians, the first governor and founder of the Inca civilization in Cusco, possibly in the early 13th century.Presc ...
decided to build the Coricancha, the foundation of Cusco, and the eventual Inca Empire
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...
. According to Ed Krupp
Edwin Charles Krupp (born November 18, 1944) is an American astronomer, researcher, author, and popularizer of science. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of archaeoastronomy, the study of how ancient cultures viewed the sky ...
, "The Inca built the Coricancha at the confluence because that place represented terrestrially the organizing pivot of heaven."[
]
Images
File:Cusco Coricancha view1.jpg, Coricancha, Convent of Santo Domingo, and courtyard (''Intipampa'')
File:Coricancha during Incaic Period (digital reconstruction)..jpg, A digital reconstruction of its base during the Inca period
File:Coricancha.JPG, One of the original rooms from the Inca period
File:Corigold.jpg, A digital reconstruction of the room when it was filled with gold, according to the description of ''Inca'' Garcilaso de la Vega
File:Qurikancha 02.jpg, Ceiling ornament
File:Qurikancha 01.jpg, Colonial Cusco School paintings, inside
File:Coricancha windows.jpg, Original windows inside the temple
See also
*Convent of Santo Domingo, Cusco
The Convent of Santo Domingo is a convent (or monastery) of the Dominican Order in the city of Cusco, Peru. Spanish colonists built it on top of Coricancha, the most important Inca temple of the capital of the people's empire.
History
Juan Piza ...
* List of buildings and structures in Cusco
*Pedro Cieza de Leon
Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter.
The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning " ...
's The Chronicle of Peru
*Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616), born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa and known as El Inca, was a chronicler and writer born in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Sailing to Spain at 21, he was educated informally there, where he ...
's ''Comentarios Reales de los Incas
The ''Comentarios Reales de los Incas'' is a book written by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the first published mestizo writer of colonial Andean South America. The ''Comentarios Reales de los Incas'' is considered by most to be the unquestioned ...
''
*Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (ca. 1535Fane, 165 – after 1616), also known as Huamán Poma or Wamán Poma, was a Quechua nobleman known for chronicling and denouncing the ill treatment of the natives of the Andes by the Spanish after their ...
's The First New Chronicle and Good Government
* Iperu, tourist information and assistance
*Tourism in Peru
Since the 2000s, Tourism in Peru makes up the nation's third largest industry, behind fishing and mining. Tourism is directed towards archaeological monuments, ecotourism in the Peruvian Amazon, cultural tourism in colonial cities, gastronomic ...
References
External links
*
“The Political Force of Images,” ''Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820.''
{{Sun temples
Temples of Inti
Buildings and structures in Cusco
Tourist attractions in Cusco Region
Archaeological sites in Cusco Region
Archaeological sites in Peru