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The Water Temple of Inca-Caranqui

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Thaimon
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« on: December 16, 2012, 11:15:47 pm »

Cieza de León, the first Spanish chronicler to visit the site in person, wrote in the late 1540s that "even though [the site] is in total ruins today, one can see that it was a grand place in former times." He described royal palaces and dwellings made of "large, elegantly cut, and subtly fitted stones." Among these was a fine estanque ("pool") made of piedra muy prima ("the finest stone").

Bray and Echeverría think they have found the estanque Cieza de León recorded. "We call it the 'Templo de Agua'—the Water Temple," Bray says. "You find pools at almost every Inca site, but they're usually 10 or 20 square feet—nothing like this." Only three or four sites in Ecuador have this kind of Inca masonry, which seems to have been reserved for palaces and temples, she says. "We don't know if it was intended to hold water for any significant amount of time or not, but it was clearly built for the circulation of water and people," she adds, referring to the water channels and the sets of steps in each corner of the pool.

Two distinct styles of canals run through the lot and into the pool. The larger type was lined and capped with roughly worked stone. The other was made of stone blocks 20 to 30 inches long laid end to end, each with a grooved channel carved into it. Bray points out various features to explain how they think the water circulated. Streams from the slopes of Imbabura, five and a half miles away, were directed to the site through canals and emptied into the pool through a series of spouts on the south side and a carved stone canal on the east. The water would have drained through two carved holes and into an underground canal, also on the east side.

Spanish chroniclers disagree over which Inca ruler built these structures and why. One Spaniard, Fernando de Montesinos, says that it was Huayna Capac, who then departed for Cuzco but left behind his two-year-old son, Atahualpa, to be raised by Inca authorities. Another, Juan de Betanzos, says Atahualpa himself ordered the construction to commemorate his father, who died of smallpox around 1527, and to celebrate his upcoming wedding and ascension to the throne.

Bray thinks that each explanation may be partly correct, noting that the pool apparently went through two periods of construction. Echeverría points out a large area where flooring stones had apparently been removed down to the underlying soil. At the edge of this section, two levels of flooring are clearly visible: a lower level made of rectangular blocks, and an upper level of smaller, more polygonal stones.

"I think Huayna Capac built the site, and then Atahualpa remodeled it for his coronation," says Bray. Every new Inca ruler traditionally founded an estate for his royal lineage and Bray believes that may have been Atahualpa's intention at Inca-Caranqui. The new floor level would have been part of Atahualpa's remodeling. It could also have been to correct some kind of functional problem, she admits. Either way, she says, it was probably the last major Inca construction project. In 1532, the Spanish under Francisco Pizarro arrived just as Atahualpa defeated his half-brother Huascar in a civil war. Within a year, Atahualpa had been executed and the Spanish conquest was well under way.
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