jump to the content
Recherche avancée

Qhapaq Ñan - Main Andean Road

Les noms des biens figurent dans la langue dans laquelle les Etats parties les ont soumis.

Chili (Amérique latine et Caraïbes)

Date de soumission : 29/01/2004
Critères: (i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)
Catégorie : Culturel
Soumission préparée par :
National Monuments Council Av. Vicuña Mackenna n°84, Providencia Santiago - Chile
Coordonnées
Through North and Center of Chile. Between latitudes 33° and 34° South.
Ref.: 1872

Description

Inca domination crowned a thousand-year development of the Andean world. It was consolidated and expedited by the particular circumstances of that diverse, relatively integrated world. The Incas fostered these circumstances and projected them into the future, in spite of the rupture caused by the arrival of the Europeans.



Where Chile's current territory is concerned, the Inca's desire for expansion was favored by the domains and networks of influence that had preceded them - the Tiwanaku, midway through the first millennium of the Christian era, and the Aymara domains. Thus, in the 15th Century, this

great civilization expanded towards the southern part of its Empire, the Kollasuyu, incorporating the Aymara system of relations and power to its aegis, subjecting the Diaguita and Copiapo cultures and interacting with the Aconcagua culture. Its southernmost bastion (the Pukara or fort of Cerro Grande de la Compania) was established a few kilometers south of the River Maipo, beyond which there extended the impenetrable world of the Mapuches.



The Inca's basic objective in the dry zone of Tarapaca (far north) was the farming potential of the valleys that criss-cross it, as well as its coastal resources. The basic resource in Atacama, where aridity becomes more extreme, was mining, even though farming in the oases, and, of course, the caravan routes criss-crossing the zone, were of parallel importance. It would also seem to have been mineral riches that encouraged the Incas to move further south towards Chile's central zone.



This domination implied an aesthetic, cultural and religious syncretism, which gave its administration, road system, worship and exploitation of natural resources a spiritual and ideological means of support and an infrastructure associated with political power. All of this was based on a road system, which, as Ruben Stehberg so correctly stated, using an analogy of the human body, was a circulatory system rather than a spinal column.



We conceive the property in question as a series of sites, which, at their point of origin or at a critical moment in their historical development, were associated with, or formed part of, the road system through which the Tawantinsuyu or Inca State incorporated places and social groups located in current Chilean territory. Most of these sites are archaeological, but some are still being used as an essential part of the ways of life of contemporary communities (e.g. farming terraces). All meet the essential condition of representing the rich, creative cultural dialogue originating in the Andean world at the instance of the Inca world, which is projected into the present. Because of their close integration and harmony with the environment, many of these sites are cultural landscapes, while others are associated with areas whose natural heritage is particularly important, with their natural surroundings being an essential component of their significance.



Since our country has had a selective approach to this project, in the sense that it wishes to incorporate selected properties into it, according to criteria of significance, in Chile we are talking especially about the following kinds of archeological sites:



•Roads (coast road, interior road and transverse roads)

•Wayside inns or stopping places

•Pukaras (Forts)

•Ceremonial platforms (Ushnus)

•Farming terraces

•Kollkas (silos)

•Administrative centers

•Shrines on the Heights

•Mining establishments

Within this great universe, we believe that the following Chilean sites have special archaeological significance in the Andean context:

•Mining Establishments: The geological wealth of the Andes in Chile has determined the existence of large deposits of ore, which were exploited before, during and after the rise of the Inca civilization, with many of them still being worked today. We believe that the magnitude, complexity and diversity of the mining establishments associated with the Inca road system in Chile make them unique in the Andean context.



• Defensive sites on the frontier (defensive line of pukaras or forts): South of the River Maipo, the Incas faced the hostility of the Mapuche world, which they were never able to penetrate. This led to the building of defensive sites on the frontier, which also makes the case of Chile very particular.



•Shrines on the Heights: Just as occurs in Argentina, the high peaks of the Andes in Chile had a particularly intense, transcendental dimension, housing the Shrines on the Heights, whose universal value is unquestionable.



•High mountain and Atacama Desert road system: In Chile, the Qhapaq Nan runs basically along the length of an extremely arid zone referred to as the Far North, and a semi-arid zone referred to as the Near North. This also makes the property singularly unique, as far as our country is concerned. The same can be said of the portion of the system that runs along the heights of the Andes Mountain Range.