Coricancha, Curicancha, Koricancha, Qoricancha or Qorikancha (''"The Golden Temple,"'' from Quechua ''quri'' gold; ''kancha'' enclosure) was the most important temple in the

Inca Empire The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

, and was described by early Spanish colonialists. It is located in

Cusco Cusco or Cuzco (; or , ) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountain range and the Huatanay river. It is the capital of the eponymous Cusco Province, province and Cusco Region, department. The city was the cap ...

, Peru, which was the capital of the empire.

History

Originally named ''Intikancha'' or ''Intiwasi'',''Qurikancha''
A Homage to the Mystical, Magical, most Famous and Oldest City of the American Continent it was dedicated to Inti (the Sun god of the Inca), and is located at the former Inca capital of

. The High Priest resided in the temple and offered up the ordinary sacrifices, accompanied by religious rites, with the help of other priests. Most of the temple was destroyed after the 16th-century war with the Spanish

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

s, as settlers also took it apart to build their own churches and residences. Much of its stonework was used as the foundation for the seventeenth-century Church and Convent of Santo Domingo. It was built after the 1650 earthquake destroyed the first Dominican convent. To construct Coricancha, the Inca used

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

masonry, building from the placement of similarly sized cuboid stones that they hand cut and shaped for this purpose.Carolyn Dean, “The Inka Married the Earth: Integrated Outcrops and the Making of Place,” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 3 (2007): 502–18. The use of ashlar masonry made the temple much more difficult to construct, as the Inca did not use any stone with a slight imperfection or break. By choosing this masonry type, the Inca intentionally demonstrated the importance of the building through the extent of the labor necessary to build the structure. Through the arduous labor needed to construct buildings with ashlar masonry, this form of construction came to signify the Inca's imperial power to mobilize and direct local labor forces. The replication throughout Andean South America of Inca architectural techniques, such as those employed at Coricancha, expressed the extent of Inca control over a vast geographic region. Pachakutiq Inca Yupanqui rebuilt Cusco and the House of the Sun, enriching it with more oracles and edifices, and adding plates of fine gold. He provided vases of gold and silver for the Mama-cunas, nuns or cloistered women, to use in the veneration services. These celibate girls and women were mostly employed in weaving and in dyeing woollen cloth for the service of the temple, as well as in making ''

chicha ''Chicha'' is a Fermentation, fermented (alcoholic) or non-fermented beverage of Latin America, emerging from the Andes and Amazonia regions. In both the pre- and post-Spanish conquest of Peru, Spanish conquest periods, corn beer (''chicha de jo ...

''. Finally, he took the bodies of the seven deceased Incas and adorned them with masks, head-dresses, medals, bracelets, and sceptres of gold, placing them on a golden bench.de Gamboa, P.S. (2015), ''History of the Incas,'' Lexington, pp. 68–69, 75 The walls were once covered in sheets of gold,Prescott, W.H., 2011, ''The History of the Conquest of Peru,'' Digireads.com Publishing, pp. 218–219 and the adjacent courtyard was filled with golden statues. Spanish reports tell of an opulence that was "fabulous beyond belief". When the Spanish in 1533 required the Inca to raise a

ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...

in gold for the life of their

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

Atahualpa, most of the gold was collected from Coricancha.

...the temple in the whole edifice was of excellent masonry, the stones very well placed and fixed. Some of the stones were very large. There was no mortar, either of earth or lime, but a sort of bitumen with which they used to fix their stones. The stones themselves are so well worked that no joining or cement can be seen.

Acquisition by Spain

The Spanish colonists built the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo on the site, demolishing the temple and using its foundations for the cathedral. They also used parts of the for other churches and residences. Construction took most of a century. This is one of numerous sites where the Spanish incorporated Inca stonework into the structure of a colonial building. Major earthquakes severely damaged the church, but the Inca stone walls, built out of huge, tightly interlocking blocks of stone, still stand due to their sophisticated stone masonry. Nearby is an underground

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

museum that contains mummies,

textiles Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

, and sacred idols from the site. Today, at the Convent of Santo Domingo, are four remaining rooms of the ancient temple with sloping walls, in which there can still be seen broken stone relics from the ''House of the Sun'' (''Inti-huasi''), consisting primarily of blocks of grey

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

stone, of

diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is Intermediate composition, inter ...

stone and of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

rock that had been carved and formed into ceremonial niches, or used for walls and canals. In one of the blocks belonging to the second course of stones, three holes can be seen that possibly served to drain rainwater from the patio or from the ''chicha''

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an Sacrifice, offering to a deity or spirit, or in Veneration of the dead, memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of Ancient history, antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures t ...

. According to the experiments conducted by Peruvian folklorist, Augusto León Barandiarán, one can hear the musical notes D , A and G when the holes are struck with an instrument. The outer wall of the temple is made up of blocks of pink and grey

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

stone, the interior surface of which showing signs of a

vitrified Vitrification (, via French ') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non- crystalline or amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses possess a higher degree of connectivity ...

layer that allowed for the reflection of light at night.

Inca astronomy

Coricancha museum marker graphically explaining the Inca astronomical system

Similarities are found in the semicircular temples found in the Temple of the Sun in Cusco, the Torreon in Machu Picchu, and the Temple of the Sun in Písac. In particular, all three exhibit a "parabolic enclosure wall" of the finest stonework, as Bingham describes it. These structures were also used for similar purposes, including the observation of

solstice A solstice is the time when the Sun reaches its most northerly or southerly sun path, excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around 20–22 June and 20–22 December. In many countries ...

s and Inca constellations. Within the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

, which the Inca called ''mayu'' or Celestial River, the Inca distinguished dark area or clouds, which they called ''yana phuyu.'' These were considered silhouettes or shadows of animals drinking from the river water. Amongst the animals named by the Inca, was a llama extended from Scorpius to

Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri (, α Cen, or Alpha Cen) is a star system in the southern constellation of Centaurus (constellation), Centaurus. It consists of three stars: Rigil Kentaurus (), Toliman (), and Proxima Centauri (). Proxima Centauri ...

and Beta Centauri, in which those two stars formed the llama's eyes, or ''llamaq ñawin.'' A baby llama, ''llama-cría,'' was inverted underneath. To the left of the llamas is a red-eyed fox, ''atuq,'' which lies between Sagittarius and the tail of Scorpius. The tail of Scorpius is known as a storehouse, or '' qullqa.'' A partridge, ''yutu,'' was just below the Southern Cross, and a toad, ''hamp'atu,'' to the lower right. A serpent, ''machaguay,'' extends off to the right. During the Inti Raymi, the

Sapa Inca The Sapa Inca (from ; ) was the monarch of the Inca Empire (''Tawantinsuyu'' "the region of the four rovinces), as well as ruler of the earlier Kingdom of Cusco and the later Neo-Inca State at Vilcabamba, Peru, Vilcabamba. While the origins ...

and curacas would proceed from the Haucaypata, where they greeted the rising June solstice sun, to the inner court of the Coricancha. On a bench in the "sun room", the Sapa Inca sat with the mummies of his ancestors. This and other rooms were oriented northeast–southwest, shingled in gold plate, and embedded with emeralds and turquoise. Focusing the sun's rays with a concave mirror, the Sapa Inca would light a fire for the burnt sacrifice of llamas. Children were also sacrificed in certain circumstances; they were brought to Cusco following a ceque and huaca route of tribute. The Coricancha is located at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of two rivers, one of which being the Huatanay River which is now highly polluted. Here, according to Inca myth, is where Manco Cápac decided to build the Coricancha, the foundation of Cusco, and the eventual

. According to Ed Krupp, "The Inca built the Coricancha at the confluence because that place represented terrestrially the organizing pivot of heaven."

Gallery

File:Cusco Coricancha view1.jpg, Coricancha, Convent of Santo Domingo, and courtyard (''Intipampa'') File:Coricancha during Incaic Period (digital reconstruction)..jpg, A digital reconstruction of its base during the Inca period File:Coricancha.JPG, One of the original rooms from the Inca period File:Corigold.jpg, A digital reconstruction of the room when it was filled with gold, according to the description of ''Inca'' Garcilaso de la Vega File:Qurikancha 02.jpg, Ceiling ornament File:Cuzco.- Temple Koricancha cosmologie Inca, (2).jpg, Gold tray representing Inca cosmology File:Qurikancha 01.jpg, Colonial Cusco School paintings, inside File:Coricancha windows.jpg, Original trapezoid windows inside the temple File:Model of old Qoricancha.jpg, Model of original Qoricancha File:Model of modern Qoricancha.jpg, Model of modern Qoricancha

References

External links