Serving the State under Surveillance: Material Correlates of the Watched on an Inka Royal Estate (Cusco, Peru)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Surveillance: Seeing and Power in the Material World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavations at the fifteenth- to sixteenth-century Inka royal estate installation of Cheqoq (Maras, Cusco) reveal domestic spaces likely inhabited by both the watched (the retainers to the nobility) and the watchers (the intermediate elites overseeing laborers). Typical interpretations of the presence/absence of luxury goods cannot be relied upon in the complex settings in which surveillance disciplined state subjects into imperial purposes and imperial values. With knowledge of the laboring conditions of the residents of Cheqoq (through archival sources and more), one can contextualize the presence of certain kinds of goods as more than mere wealth. I describe the possible material correlates of an overseer or administrator household at this royal estate. I also detail the evidence for being watched found in retainer laborer households, including misfired imperial ceramic vessels from Cheqoq’s pottery workshop. I ask whether the “toting effect”, in which high-status goods make their way into households not otherwise experiencing the liberties of a high-status life, might be leading to misinterpretation. The material record of being watched while living under coercive labor conditions offers a view of daily experiences in exploitative settings.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of Surveillance: Seeing and Power in the Material World   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40322.0