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Historical context |
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History according to archaeology |
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Archaeology records two phases in the behavior of those from Cuzco, which have been called Inca Provincial or Killke, and Imperial Inca. In the first, Provincial, phase, architecture and the rest of the arts had not been developed beyond the domestic limits which the local, basically village form of life maintained. Manufacturing was of simple configuration and rough looking, with no major differences between an ordinary vessel and an elegant one. This radically changed in the Imperial phase, in what was ostensibly the existence of an elite manufacture and another, popular one. Therefore the settlements of the Provincial phase, of undifferentiated village aspect, were displaced by clearly elitist urban centers with public buildings and luxurious sacred spaces, roads paved with stones, stations to provide services for travelers on the routes between towns, storehouses and granaries for keeping excess goods or those received in tribute, etc. Machu Picchu obviously belongs to the Imperial phase. |
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The context in which the citadel was installed is directly associated with sumptuous conditions born with the formation of the Inca empire. If this was, in effect, the mausoleum chosen by Pachakutec to keep his body for eternity, it is a work certainly equivalent to those constructed by other civilizations of the world for their sacred heroes. If that is not the case, then it must be a work designed by a refined artist to fulfill a function different from any other known settlement of its time. The Incas built various cities in Tawantinsuyu, all of them architecturally exquisite, but none of them with the aesthetic delight which every one of the chambers and spaces of this sanctuary has. |
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