Raqchi

The site of Raqchi is located at an altitude of 3.500  m approximately, in the department of Cusco, with the Peru. It is a site very important INCA, because one finds there things which one does not see in any other INCA site.

It was a very important center, as well religious as administrative, composed of a principal building dedicated to the creative god Wiracocha, dwellings aligned very well reserved to the priests and reserves of storages. It seems that the site was used of customs and center of storage of the foodstuffs, because located at the border of two great areas.

A statue, probably of the Wiracocha god, was on the site before the arrival of the Spanish . Those took it along to Cuzco. One found only his head, currently in a museum of Madrid, and his visible trunk in a museum of Cuzco.

  • the temple

    • Its dimensions 92 m length were on 25 broad and nearly 12 m in height.
    • the roof was maintained by 22 columns, made stones perfectly adjusted in the low part and of cob above. It is the only INCA site to have columns!
    • the bottom of the walls of the principal building is made of stones adjusted very well, the remainder being made cob on a thickness of almost one meter. Windows are cut out in the wall, certainly to reduce the weight of them.
    • the principal walls are covered by a thin layer of clay representing a staircase, the Andean cross. It is also the only INCA site with being equipped with such decorations.

  • Qolqas
    • It was a center of storage of the foodstuffs, of circular form of 8m of diameter
    • the archeologist William John McDonald Sillar counted 156 of them.
    • Recouvertes with a roof of straw, they were made volcanic stones assembled by mortar
    • the climate of Raqchi allowed a long conservation of food, in particular of dehydrated potatoes.

The site of Raqchi is surrounded by a stone wall of lava with two entries for the Chemin of the INCA which goes to the Machu Picchu.

In addition, on the site is an artificial lake at the bottom covered with stones, of which the use is not known, as well as a whole of fountains called the bath of the INCA. The feeder system of these fountains is very well made, but nobody still succeeded in knowing from which water comes from these sources which never dry up.

The village around the site has since the INCA time be a center of manufacture of Céramique S.

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