Incan architecture
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![The twelve angle stone, in Hatum Rumiyoc street (Cusco), is considered by many to be the symbol of the Incan architecture[citation needed].](../../../../images/shared/thumb/3/32/CuscoPiedra12angulo.jpg/300px-CuscoPiedra12angulo.jpg)
Inca architecture is the most significant pre-Columbian architecture in South America. The Incas inherited an architectural legacy from Tiwanaku, founded in the second century B.C. in present day Bolivia. The Incas developed an extensive road system spanning most of the western length of the continent. Inca rope bridges could be considered the world's first suspension bridges. Because the Incas used no wheels (the Inca, unlike many other large empires, never discovered the wheel) or horses they built their roads and bridges for foot and pack-llama traffic. Much of present day architecture at the former Inca capital Cusco shows both Incan and Spanish influences. The famous lost city Machu Picchu is the best surviving example of Incan architecture. Some other significant sites include Sacsayhuaman and Ollantaytambo.
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[edit] Characteristics
Inca buildings were made out of fieldstones or semi-worked stone blocs set in mortar; adobe walls were also quite common, usually laid over stone foundations.[1] The most common shape in Inca architecture was the rectangular building without any internal walls and roofed with wooden beams and thatch.[2] There were several variations of this basic design, including gabled roofs, rooms with one or two of the long sides opened and rooms that shared a long wall.[3] Rectangular buildings were used for quite different functions in almost all Inca buildings, from humble houses to palaces and temples.[4] Even so, there are some examples of curved walls on Inca buildings, mostly in regions outside the central area of the empire.[5] Two story buildings were infrequent; when they were built the second floor was accessed from the outside via a stairway or high terrain rather than from the first floor.[6] Wall apertures, including doors, niches and windows, usually had a trapezoidal shape; they could be fitted with double or triple jambs as a form of ornamentation.[7] Other kinds of decoration were scarce; some walls were painted or adorned with metal plaques, in rare cases walls were sculpted with small animals or geometric patterns.[8]
Inca architecture is widely known for its fine masonry, which features superbly cut and shaped stones closely fitted without mortar.[9] Fine Incan masonry can be grouped into two categories: polygonal and coursed or rectangular. Typically polygonal construction consists of irregularly shaped blocks. This type of masonry is found in canals, terrace walls and very rarely in buildings. Coursed masonry is composed of large rectangular blocks and is commonly used in perimeter walls and in the corners of buildings. Inca doors and windows were normally trapezoidal in shape. Often there is a stone either above or beside the doorway, so that the door could be tied and kept open.
[edit] Masonry and Construction Methods
The Inca had learned about the importance of long-lasting infrastructure, including the need for foundations, from the Tiwanaku Empire near Lake Titicaca. The famed Incan foundations are the reason for their city’s longevity. Water engineer Ken Wright estimates that 60 percent of the Inca construction effort was underground. The Inca built their cities with locally available materials, usually including limestone or granite. To cut these hard rocks the Inca used stone, bronze or copper tools, usually splitting the stones along the natural fracture lines. Without the wheel the stones were rolled up wood beams on earth ramps. Extraordinary manpower would have been necessary. Hyslop comments that the “ ‘secret’ to the production of fine Inca masonry…was the social organization necessary to maintain the great numbers of people creating such energy-consuming monuments.”
Usually the walls of Incan buildings were slightly inclined inside and the corners were rounded. This, in combination with masonry thoroughness, led Incan buildings to have a peerless seismic resistance thanks to high static and dynamic steadiness, absence of resonant frequencies and stress concentration points. During an earthquake with a small or moderate magnitude, masonry was stable, and during a strong earthquake stone blocks were “ dancing ” near their normal positions and lay down exactly in right order after an earthquake.
[edit] Agricultural Architecture
Perhaps the most renowned aspect of Incan architecture is the use of terraces to increase the land available for farming. These steppes provided flat ground surface for food production while protecting their city centers against erosion and landslides common in the Andes. Modern engineers copy this agriculture architecture method, such as Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. The civil engineers at Machu Picchu built these so well that they were still intact in 1912 when Hiram Bingham discovered the lost city.
[edit] Roads
The Incas had an incredible system of roads. One road ran almost the entire length of the South American Pacific coast. Since the Incas lived in the Andes Mountains, the roads took great engineering and architectural skill to build. On the coast, the roads were not surfaced and were marked only by tree trunks The Incas paved their highland roads with flat stones and built stone walls to prevent travelers from falling off cliffs.
Referred to as an 'all-weather highway system', the over 14,000 miles of Inca roads were an astonishing and reliable precursor to the advent of the automobile. Communication and transport was efficient and speedy, linking the mountain peoples and lowland desert dwellers with Cuzco. Building materials and ceremonial processions traveled thousands of miles along the roads that still exist in remarkably good condition today. They were built to last and to withstand the extreme natural forces of wind, floods, ice, and drought.
This central nervous system of Inca transport and communication rivaled that of Rome. A high road crossed the higher regions of the Cordillera from north to south and another lower north-south road crossed the coastal plains. Shorter crossroads linked the two main highways together in several places. The terrain, according to Ciezo de Leon, an early chronicler of Inca culture, was formidable. The road system ran through deep valleys and over mountains, through piles of snow, quagmires, living rock, along turbulent rivers; in some places it ran smooth and paved, carefully laid out; in others over sierras, cut through the rock, with walls skirting the rivers, and steps and rests through the snow; everywhere it was clean swept and kept free of rubbish, with lodgings, storehouses, temples to the sun, and posts along the way. The Incas did not have the wheel, as they had no draft animals, so all travel was done on foot. To help travelers on their way, rest houses were built every few kilometers. In these rest houses, they could spend a night, cook a meal and feed their llamas.
Their bridges, which were made from ropes ingeneously tied together to form a narrow but effective structure, were the only way to cross rivers on foot. If only one of their hundreds of bridges was damaged, a major road could not fully function. Fortunately, every time a bridge broke, the locals would repair it as quickly as possible.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, pp. 11–12
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, pp. 5–6
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, p. 6
- ^ Gasparini and Margolies, Inca architecture, p. 134
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, pp. 7–8
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, p. 8
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, pp. 9–10
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, pp. 10–11
- ^ Hyslop, Inka settlement, pp. 12
[edit] Bibliography
- Gasparini, Graziano and Margolies, Luize. Inca architecture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-253-30443-1
- Hyslop, John. Inka settlement planning. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. ISBN 0-292-73852-8
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