Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Inca road system
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Religious === [[File:The Inka coastal road at Pachacamac DSC 0318.jpg|thumb|The Inca coastal road at the Pachacamac Sanctuary]] The high altitude shrines were directly related to the cult of Nature and specifically to the mountains, typical of the Inca society, which the Incas formalized by the construction of religious structures on the mountain peaks. Mountains are the ''apus'', or deities, in the universe of Andean beliefs that are still held today; they have a spiritual connotation linked to the future of Nature and human existence. The Incas held many rituals, including the sacrifice of children, goods, and llamas, at the mountain tops as part of this belief. However, not all mountains held the same religious connotation nor were sanctuaries built on all of them. The only way to reach the summits of the mountains for worship was by connecting the road system to high altitude paths in order to reach the sacred places. They were ritual roads that culminated in the peaks, at the point of contact between the earthly and the sacred space. Some of them reached high altitudes above sea level, such as mount Chañi, which had a road that started at the base and went to the summit at an elevation of {{convert|5,949|m|ft}}.<ref>{{cite news|last=Vitry|first=Christian|title=Roads for Rituals and Sacred Mountains. A study of the Inca Road Systems in High Altitude Shrines in the North|newspaper=Bulletin of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art|year=2007|page=2}}</ref> In addition to high altitude shrines, there were also many holy shrines or religious sites, called [[Huaca|wak’a]], that were a part of the [[Ceque system|Zeq’e system]] along and near the roads, especially around the capital city, Cusco. These shrines were either natural or modified features of the landscape, as well as buildings, where the Inca would visit for worship.<ref name="D'Altroy2002a" />{{rp|163}} Some important places of worship were directly connected by the main Inca roads. Such is the case of the sanctuary of [[Pachacamac]] through which the coastal road passed, just south of present day [[Lima]].
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)