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Tarawasi:  On The Inca Road

4/4/2021

1 Comment

 
Tarawasi is an Ushnu on the Great Inca Highway. The Incas built a series of Ushnus (ceremonial stepped-platforms) all along the Royal Highway that ran thousands of miles north to south down the mighty mountain chain of the Andes.

This episode of IncaTalk finds Peter & Maren at a superb and well-preserved ushnu that still stands at Tarawasi near the small town of Limatambo, in the Apurimac valley near Cusco.
Picture
This drawing, done by Waman Poma*, is an illustration of Manco Inca sitting on an Ushnu.

Manco Inca was the leader of the Inca resistance from 1536 to 1544. Here he is surrounded by his generals and seated on an Ushnu that may have been very similar to the one at Tarawasi that we highlight in this second episode of IncaTalk.

*Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (ca. 1535 – 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 conquest. Today, Guamán Poma is noted for his illustrated chronicle.

1 Comment
Cameron Blair
5/3/2022 10:31:53 am

Hi Ms. Elwood and Mr. Frost, I am a civil engineer from Canada. I just watched and enjoyed your video on Tarawasi. I noted that there appears to have been a repair job done on the platform structure. It looks like someone had difficulty piecing back together some of the blocks as a few of them appear not to be mating properly. I would bet that some of the blocks had fallen to the ground in an earthquake. The damage to the faces of some of the rocks is bizarre and doesn't look like anything humans could impose with a simple heat source like fire. Later in the video, where the waterway is discussed that passes through the courtyard of the Spanish structure, I noticed a modern pipe cemented in place passing through the wall. Excellent video - I love learning about Inca/pre-Incan structures. I am noticing platform structures around the world. They exist also in Mexico and I believe even Temple Mount in Jerusalem could be a similar structure that has been re-purposed by Jewish, Roman, and Muslim groups over the past few thousand years.

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    Peter Frost is a writer, independent scholar, lecturer and photographer who lives in Cusco, Peru.

    Maren Elwood is a Visual Anthropologist documenting the archaeological site of Saqsaywaman, Peru.  She lives in Carmel, CA. USA

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