Vitcos

Vitcos or Rosaspata is an archaeological ruin in the Vilcabamba district of the La Convención province in the Cusco region , which can be assigned to the Inca culture. It is not entirely certain by which Inca ruler the facility was commissioned. Manco Cápac II (ruler from 1533 to 1544) or Pachacútec Yupanqui (ruler from 1438 to 1471), the builder of Machu Picchu, are considered likely .

history

After Manco Cápac II flew from Cusco before Pizarro, he settled in the so-called Cusco region, which also includes Machu Picchu , Choquequirao , Vitcos and Vilcabamba (or Espiritu Pampa). From his exile in Vilcabamba, he organized the resistance against the Spaniards. Due to the tropical hot location of Vilcabamba, it is assumed that he used the higher residence in Vitcos with a cooler Andean climate familiar to the Inca, or that he had it built, as suspected. Vitcos is roughly on the direct line between Cusco and Lima , which was cheap if you wanted to disrupt the supply routes for the Spaniards. According to another theory, Pachacútec Yupanqui is believed to be the builder who had Vitcos built as a summer palace. After his death, the palace remained his property according to Inca custom and was only used again by Manco Cápac II. Vitcos is assured to be the place where Manco was murdered by a group of disgraced, renegade conquistadors in an attempt to regain the favor of the Spanish crown. During a hopeless escape venture, the murderers were caught and killed by the royal palace guards.

Location and description

Vitcos is located in the Vilcabambatal on a hill at about 2970 m altitude between the present-day villages of Huancacalle and Pucyura , not far from the town of Lucma . The entire valley is green, heavily forested and used for agriculture. You can reach the facility from the south, it is about half an hour's walk from Yurak Rumi . The facility consists of three building complexes arranged at right angles. Coming from the south, you first reach the smallest building with a size of around 23 × 10 m. The building is on the same level as a regularly structured, spacious building about 80 × 15 m in size. The buildings are separated from each other by an undeveloped space. The second building is divided into four main chambers, each separated by a corridor. Each chamber is accessible through three gates. The door reveals and lintels of the corridors are simply stepped and stand out due to the finely crafted, smooth large-block dry masonry with even horizontal joints. The door reveals and lintels to the chambers are less prominent architecturally. In the interior of the chamber, niches are regularly set into the walls. The notches on the upper edges of the wall suggest that the rooms were covered with a wooden beam roof sloping to the north (rear) and that the masonry was not much higher than it is today. If you walk through the corridors, you stand in front of a steep embankment that intercepts the upper terrace on which the upper building complex was laid out. This level can only be reached via side paths. The upper building complex with about 50 × 48 m was laid out almost square and shows little spectacular.

discovery

The Vitco ruins were described by the explorer and archaeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911 while searching for the Vilcabamba.

Web links

Commons : Vitcos - Rosaspata - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

-13.098455555556 -72.931622222222Coordinates: 13 ° 6 ′ S , 72 ° 56 ′ W