Discover Pisac

Pisaq Archaeological Park.

Location:

Province : Calca.

District : Pisac.

The Pisaq Archaeological Park is located in the Pisac district of the Calca province in the department of Cusco.

It was delimited by National Directorate resolution n ° 429-2002

Access:

The park is reached via the paved road Cusco – Calca, following a 7 kilometer pedestrian path to the Intihuatana neighborhood.

Extension:

Area: 9, 063 Hectares.

Perimeter: 43, 340 linear meters.

History:

According to the chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pisaq was built in the Inka Pachakuteq period as a country house and recreation for the ruler, taking the model of the City of Cusco. It is believed to have been a kind of “royal hacienda” and therefore belonged to his Panaca or kinship group. The name of “Pisaq” probably comes from the Quechua “Pisaq” that alludes to the partridge, gallinaceous that abounds in the area.

This pre-Hispanic settlement is made up of a set of structures for religious, agricultural, ceremonial and military use, grouped according to function; most of them are concentrated in the upper part of the complex and have an impressive visual framework of the “Sacred Valley”.

Its location on the top of the mountain, strategic and impregnable, allows it to dominate a wide sector of the area and the valley that runs towards Antisuyo. The best known part of Pisaq is the solar observatory called “Intiwatana” which is only one part of the set of buildings that make up the walled fortress and the platforms built over the abyss and that surrounded the sectors of Hanan and Hurin Pisaq.

Pisaq present an “urbanism” articulated to the topographic configuration of the terrain. The following sectors can be recognized from this adaptation to the environment: ceremonial center of INtiwatana, urban sector of Inka Qonqorina, K´allak´asa, Kantusraqay, Hostusraqay, Hospitalniyoq, Qoriwayrachina, Q´entemuurima, network of roads and agricultural platforms.

All these sectors are associated with agricultural platforms and present architecture with rustic, simple, concerted and fine, and in some cases composite, rigging walls. There are also adobe walls on a stone foundation.

In the archaeological investigations carried out in the area, cultural material associated with the constructions was recovered, managing to identify the existence of constructions that belong to the Killke (pre Inka) and Inka settlements. Pisaq is made up of approximately 93 archaeological sites.

The mestizo town located at the bottom, was established between 1571 and 1572, by the implementation of the system of reductions imposed by the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, which ordered to gather, reduce and control “the Indians”, forcing them to live in populations to an end that they did not give to idleness, to protect them and remove them from their “gentleness”, teaching them the Christian religion to incorporate them into civilization, preventing them from being scattered.