Coricancha

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Coricancha

The Coricancha ( Spanish spelling), Qurikancha or Qorikancha ( quechua = golden temple, golden court, golden enclosure), originally Intikancha (quechua = sun temple, sun district) was the most important temple in the Inca capital Cusco . He did not survive the destruction of the Conquista . Today there are only a few remains of the wall in the center of Cusco, which testify to the splendor of that work. After a severe earthquake in 1650, its ruins were largely overbuilt by the construction of the Convento de Santo Domingo. Only four rooms were still used by the monastery. Another severe earthquake in 1950 damaged the church and exposed the remains of the temple wall that had long been believed to have been destroyed.

Holy place

The Coricancha was the holiest place where the Inca celebrated weddings, coronations, burials and rites of "national" importance. Only Incas could enter the temple of Inti , (sun) sober, barefoot and as a sign of their humility with a load on their back, following the instructions of Willaq Umu (Villac Umu, Huillac Umu), the high priest of the sun cult. This always lived near the Sapa Inka . If the Sapa Inca stayed in Cusco, the Coricancha was the seat of Villac Umu and his main place of activity. In addition to the main sun temple of the empire, six other temples were enclosed by Inti Pampa (quechua = sun field), which were dedicated to the cult of other deities, such as Mama Killa (mother moon) and Illapa , the god of lightning and thunder, the cult of Venus (Ch'aska quyllur) and the Pleiades (Suchu, qullqa quyllur) , the weather gods and the rainbow (K'uychi, in the "snake temple " Amarukancha) served.

Remains of the wall of the Coricancha in the convent of Santo Domingo today

The interior of the temple had, among other treasures, the golden disc that represented the sun and a representation of the entire Inca pantheon . The royal mummies were set up in trapezoidal niches in the walls and on golden thrones and decorated with golden masks and extremely finely woven fabrics. The mummies were ritually supplied with food and drink by servants. The floor and walls were originally covered with 700 solid gold plates. The solid golden sun disk in the shape of a person was set up in front of a wall richly decorated with emeralds and turquoises in such a way that the rising sun was reflected by the metal and the precious stones, and they reflected a dazzling golden light.

The neighboring room, which was dedicated to the moon goddess Mama Killa, was completely lined with silver . Here a silver-colored moon disc made of platinum in the form of a woman was worshiped as the bride and sister of the sun god, 10 meters in diameter and over 900 kg in weight, and prayed for intercession and children's blessings. The mummies of the "Coyas" , the queens, were placed in this room .

Coricancha wall from Inca times inside the Church of Santo Domingo

The chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa assured that Pachacútec had large, gold-framed canvases hung in the Coricancha on which the Inca history was recorded, which were later kept in the adjacent “Puquincancha” , the “Imperial Archives” and during the conquest of Cusco caught fire along with the city. Pachacútec made the Coricancha the scene of a process unique in pre-Columbian America, a “theologians” congress, a kind of council at which the Viracocha cult was reformed. Pachacútec had an oval image of Viracocha set up in the Coricancha , just as the other main deities in the Coricancha also had an oval image.

In its neighborhood there was also a sacred garden , which was adorned with golden figures of life-size people, animals and plants. The chronicler Pedro Cieza de León described: “in which the earth consisted of lumps of fine gold, with corn plants with golden stems, leaves and cobs that were planted so firmly that they would not be uprooted no matter how strong the wind blew. Next to it twenty golden lamas grazed with their lambs, guarded by life-size shepherds with crooks and slings, which, like everything, were made of pure gold . ” Well-formed girls picked golden fruits from golden trees. Birds made of gold, such as hummingbirds, swayed on the branches of golden trees and bushes . Golden snakes, their eyes sparkling with dark gemstones, twisted across the floor. In meadows, the individual stalks of which were made deceptively real of gold, shimmered blossoms made of precious stones, on which golden butterflies perched and crawled through the golden beetles. There were also lizards, mice and even spiders, but also watering cans and five wells made of gold. Similar gardens in silver adorned other temple courtyards. Gold and silver had exclusively cultic value, as gold was considered "the sweat of the sun" and silver as "the tears of the moon".

Although the Coricancha itself was not on the list of sanctuaries, the Spanish suspected because of the rich offerings that the Inca considered it the most holy place, which is why they built a church with a convent here.

architecture

Detail of the outer wall
Ceiling (detail)

The Coricancha was built in 1438 on the site of the oldest settlement in Cusco. While the legendary Manco Cápac chose the location between the two rivers Río Huatanay and Río Tullumayo , for military and irrigation reasons, to found his Inti Cancha - a small house in which his sisters lived - Pachacútec increased its sacred importance of the place: He had Cusco redesigned in the form of a puma , an ancient symbol of power associated with the lunar cult, with the coricancha being placed exactly below the puma tail in the place of its sexual organs.

In addition to the apsidal sun temple, an enclosure comprised four smaller temples that surrounded a temple courtyard on three sides. The front had a beautiful wall made of the finest stonemasonry , uniformly decorated with a continuous strip of pure gold three meters above the ground, a noble and ingenious short thatched roof, which was supported by a mesh of gold wire. The walls consisted of natural stones, perfectly seamlessly interlocked without cement, with a slight cushion shape on the sides that emphasize the aesthetic simplicity of the building. The stone blocks taper towards the top, visually emphasizing the height even more.

In one of the blocks of the second stone layer, three holes can be observed, which may have been used to drain rainwater from the courtyard or the sacrificed chicha . According to the experiments of Augusto León Barandiarán you can hear the musical notes D, A and E when you hit the holes.

The circumference of the temple was more than 365 meters. Its main portal was on the north side. This, like the side entrances, was covered with gold plates. At that time there was no triangular atrium that served as the entrance to the colonial temple and the winding wall at right angles to Ahuacpinta and Awaq Pinta Street, in which a piece of the original wall, almost sixty meters long, has been preserved. On the opposite side of this street, the wall winds around a bend of more than 90 ° and continues with a gentle curve that was shortened during the construction of the temple. The Coricancha wall was crowned by a system of terraces that once sloped down to the river.

There is now an archaeological museum nearby, which has interesting exhibits including mummies, textiles, and cult objects.

literature

  • Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua (1613). Relación de antiguedades deste reyno del Piru. Newly published: La "Relación de antigüedades deste Reyno del Pirú": gramática y discurso ideológico indígena / Rosario Navarro Gala (ed.), Madrid / Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2007

Web links

Commons : Coricancha  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ Julien, Catherine: Die Inka , Munich, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-41875-4 , p. 41
  2. ^ Willey, Gordon R .: Das Alte Amerika , Propylaea Art History, Volume 19, Berlin, ISBN 3-549-05035-6 , p. 310.
  3. ↑ von Hagen, Victor W .: Sun Kings , Munich, 1962, ISBN 3-426-00125-X , p. 280
  4. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , p. 348
  5. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , p. 256
  6. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , p. 279
  7. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , pp. 141f
  8. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , p. 269
  9. ^ Wurster, Wolfgang W .: The Treasure Graves - Archaeological Expeditions through the High Cultures of South America , Hamburg, 1991, ISBN 3-570-01000-7 , p. 222
  10. ↑ von Hagen, Victor W .: Sun Kings , Munich, 1962, ISBN 3-426-00125-X , p. 280
  11. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , p. 11f
  12. ↑ Piekalkiewicz, Janusz: There lies gold ; Wiesbaden, 1979, p. 239f
  13. ↑ Lippert, Helga: Terra X - From the oases of Egypt to the curse of Inca gold , Munich, 2001; ISBN 3-453-19700-3 , p. 295
  14. ↑ Julien, Catherine: Die Inka , Munich, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-41875-4 , p. 41
  15. ↑ Julien, Catherine: Die Inka , Munich, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-41875-4 , p. 38
  16. ↑ Daniel, Glyn: Encyclopedia of Archeology , Bergisch Gladbach, 1996, ISBN 3-930656-37-X , p. 124.
  17. ↑ Miloslav Stingl : The Empire of the Inca - Glory and Fall of the Sun Sons ; Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-86047-212-7 , p. 349

Coordinates: 13 ° 31 ′ 14.6 ″  S , 71 ° 58 ′ 31.4 ″  W.