Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Temple of Coricancha- Capital of Inca Empire

Going back in time a little bit, to our trip to Peru.

We flew from La Paz to Cuzco, Peru. From here we would discover the Inca world. Our first stop was the Temple of Coricancha. This temple was RIGHT across the street of our hotel and our room overlooked it!

This temple, the Sun Temple, was the most important temple of the Inca Empire. Unfortunately, when the Spanish invaded in the 17th century, they tore down the temple and built the Church of Santo Domingo. This site is now a great example of Inca stonework meeting colonial architecture.
The stones on the bottom are Inca and the white building is the church built on top. The building has had to be repaired several times due to earthquakes BUT the Inca stonework has stood the test of time. Amazing workmanship.
This stone shows how the Inca's would use a type of "key" to hold the stones together. They would fill the crevice with brass and then put a stone on top with the same cut out. During earthquakes, the brass melts because of the friction and allows the stones to shift. After the earthquake, the brass hardens and locks the stones back into place. AMAZING!
This building is so beautiful. The kids give you a scale of just how huge it is.
The inside gives you a true Spanish feel. All along the sides are BEAUTIFUL paintings. They are huge, the size of the whole wall. We were not able to take pictures of them so I can not share how beautiful they were. But, when the Inca's built the Temple, the walls were covered with solid gold.
The painting behind Wyatt, is a section that has been left as an example of how the Spanish covered the Inca stone work. They painted it with a white plaster and then painted this type of mural all over the walls.
In the middle of the courtyard is the Cuzco Cara Urumi (the Uncovered Navel Stone). It is the stone coffer, which was once covered with more than 55 kilograms of pure gold. To the front of the building, is the room dedicated to the sun, while to the left the rooms for the stars and the moon. (sunset) And to the right, were three rooms; one to the Rainbow, one to Lightning, and one to Rain (sunrise).
After the earthquake of 1950, when the Spanish Church was partly destroyed the Inca walls were discovered. You can see how tightly the stones were laid. You can not even put a credit card between the stones. They did not use grout.
This picture shows how perfectly aligned the windows are. Remember, they built this with no modern tools! I can't even hang a picture straight with a level!

The wonderful view from one of the windows. You could see why this was the center of all the Inca Empire.

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