This book focuses on one of the most significant manifestations of Inca sacred space - the ‘ushnu’ - a place of sacrifice, ritual and celebration, where the sun god was worshipped and where astronomical observations were made to monitor the yearly seasonal cycle. Physically the ushnu is a (stone built) stepped platform linked to a drain or a basin into which liquids can flow. The ushnu is seen as a place for the circulation of sacred essences between the world of the gods, the ruler, his people and their ancestors.
The authors in this book examine the practical and symbolic principles underlying the construction of ushnus, the rationale for their placement, their function within the landscape and the activities that took place on them. The ingenious symbolic and practical architectural construction of the ushnu complex was deployed to appropriate and transform newly conquered subject territories. The best-known surviving ushnu platforms are conspicuous features at all the main settlements and administrative centres on the Inca royal roads, and at nodal points in the wider environment. This great arterial network and its associated ushnucomplexes were fashioned to enhance the productive capacity of the landscape and to regulate the flow of key agricultural commodities. When Pizarro took the Inca king, Atahuallpa, prisoner, he did this at a location of Atahuallpa’s choice which we now know to have been the ushnu platform at the centre of the Inca site of Cajamarca, in the Northern Highlands of Peru. The papers united in this volume review the nature, expression, role and function of the ushnu concept from its pre-Inca origins through its interpretation in Tawantinsuyu, the Inca empire into its current Andean cultural context.
These papers were presented at a two-day conference at the British Museum in November 2010 and the BM have recently released this video on their project:
http://youtu.be/oT9NdKpUwdU>
Contents
Introduction: Inca Sacred Space: Landscape, Site and Symbol in the Andes
Frank Meddens, Katie Willis, Colin McEwan and Nicholas Branch
The ushnus of Cusco and sacred centres in Andean ethnography, ethnohistory and archaeology
Professor R Tom Zuidema
Cognizing and marking the Andean landscape: ushnu, apachetas, sayhuas and wankas
Colin McEwan
The Link: of sacred persons and places
Susan Ramirez
Boundaries at the roof of the world: the ushnu and divisions in political and religious space
Frank Meddens
Ushnus and interiority
Catherine Allen
Learning about ushnus: social memories of the Inca state in a modern school setting in highland Bolivia
Denise Y Arnold
From Cuzco to the Four Quarters & vice-versa: connecting sacred spaces through the movement of stone, sand, and soil
Dennis Ogburn
The landscape, environment and pedo-Sedimentary context of Inca stepped platforms (‘ushnus’), Ayacucho, Peru
Nicholas Branch, Millena Frouin, Rob Kemp, Nathalie Marini, Frank Meddens, Chiwetazulu Onuora and Barbara Silva
'Ritual Mixing': An Ethnographic Approach to the Combination of Fills from Different Origins in Inca ushnu platforms
Francisco Ferreira
If All the World's a Stage Then What's anushnu?
Lawrence S. Coben
Staging Sound: Acoustic Reflections on Inca Music, Architecture and Performance Spaces
Henry Stobart
Sacred Mountains and Rituals in the Andes
Carmen Escalante Gutiérrez and Ricardo Valderrama Fernández
The Incas in the territory of the Chancas: Usnukuna Platforms and their Antecedents
Cirilo Vivanco Pomacanchari
Altars and Altitude: The ushnu and the puna during the Late Horizon
Gabriel Ramón Joffré
Lightning (Illapa) and its Manifestations: Huacas and Ushnus
John E. Staller
Astronomical Observations on Inca ushnus in the Southern Andes
Ricardo Moyano
The Centre of the World and the Cusco ushnu Complexes
I.S Farrington
Choqek’iraw and its Ceremonial Platform called ushnu
Patrice Lecoq and Thibault Saintenoy
The ushnu, the centre of the Inca world: an overview from the highlands of Piura, northern Peru
César Astuhuamán
Tambo Colorado: An ushnu and more
Jean-Pierre Protzen
The ushnus of Condesuyos
Mariusz Ziólkowski
An 1800-year Ice core history of climate and environment in the Andes of southern Peru and its relationship with highland/lowland cultural oscillations
Lonnie G. Thompson and Mary E. Davis
Afterword: power and propitiation in the Andes
Tristan Platt
This is a terrific book...The volume is well-edited, superbly illustrated, and consistently insightful...comparative chapters are complemented by outstanding case studies...This brief review cannot fully convey the rich insights throughout Inca Sacred Space: Landscape, Site and Symbol in the Andes which the reader should study and savor.
Journal of Historical Geography - February 2015
