Constructing Social Memory: Inca Politics and Sacred Landscape in the Lurin Valley

Summary

We will discuss the characteristics and scope of Inca politics in the Lurin Valley by focusing on the results of excavations carried out by Makowski (2016) in Pachacamac with its famous Imperial Inca temple and oracle, as well as in the administrative center Pueblo Viejo – Pucara. The comparison of landscape transformed by Imperial infrastructure between the Highlands of Cuzco (Christie 2016) and the lower Lurin Valley allows to reconstruct the mechanisms through which social memory was channeled for political purposes which were similar in both cases, even though the forms and techniques of ceremonial architecture were so different due to the separate cultural origin of the builders and users of these spaces. In Pachacamac and Pueblo Viejo, the Inca administration constructed plazas and compounds with restricted access, each one of which probably served a specific population group. The location of the plazas and communication axes maintained a direct visual connection with specific mountains and rocks which were modified and transformed into new huacas incorporated in the Imperial cult. In this new architectural setting, ritual networks of blood-related, ethnic, and ceremonial kinship as well as political compromises were sealed, negotiated, and affirmed through social performance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Social Memory in the Central Andes

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15593