Piquillacta Archeological Park
Our next day trip from Cuzco took us to the Piquillacta Archeological Park, about 45 minutes south of the city by public bus. The park surrounds an area that is particularly rich in water for the semi-arid Cuzco valley, including a shallow lake and a marsh, meaning it was of particular importance for all of the peoples to pass through during its inhabited history, and it is full of interesting archaeological sites. The crowning piece of the park are the remains of a sprawling citadel built by the Huari culture around 800 CE. Other highlights include an Inca-era burial complex with a couple of basic chullpas and a truly massive aqueduct built by the Collpa civilization and expanded by the Incas.
The Huari citadel of Piquillacta, from which the park draws its name, is a site impressive mostly for its massive size. The excavated portions of it run 2x2 kilometers, but walls poking up out of the earth around the site evidence at least two more excavated neighborhoods that could double the known size of the city. The complex is surrounded by a double-ring wall, the inner wall being between one and two meters thick and up to 7 meters high. The buildings within the citadel match its monumental layout: some of the central structures reach 12 meters and three stories high, while hundreds of stone-build habitations stretch out from these centers. Many buildings, especially in the ceremonial district, still conserve the remains of their stuccoed floors, stairs and walls.
The hill overlooking the southeast corner of of Piquillacta sits an Inca-era burial complex, with at least four chullpas peering out over the valley bellow.
Just a kilometer or so down the road from these two sites lay the ruins of an aqueduct today called Rumicolca. Once part of a much longer network of channels that brought water from the mountains to the west into the valley, it once served to transfer water to the terracing on the east side of the valley without having to carry water uphill. Due to its height, heft and the fact that it effectively cut the Cuzco valley from the south, the aqueduct doubled as a defensive wall.
We hope you enjoy the pictures, this was quite a place!
August 31st, 2010 - 08:09
Y-a des toutous de cette taille dans la nature encore? Nothing would surprise me…