Kuelap
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The fortress of Kuelap (or Cuélap), associated with the Chachapoyas culture, consists of massive exterior stone walls containing more than four hundred buildings. The structure, situated on a ridge overlooking the Utcubamba Valley in northern Peru, is roughly 600 meters in length and 110 meters in width. It was likely built to defend against the Huari or other hostile peoples. Archaeological evidence shows that the structure was built around 800 AD and occupied until the Early Colonial period (1532-1570).
This prime example of Chachapoyan architecture, Kuelap, remained ignored by the outside world until 1843, when Juan Crisóstomo Nieto, a Chachapoyas judge, made a survey of the area and took note of Kuelap's great size, guided by villagers who had known of the site for generations. Subsequently, Kuelap earned the attention of explorers, historians and archaeologists. Notable observers included Frenchman Louis Langlois (who wrote a description of Kuelap in the thirties) and Adolf Bandelier.
The ruins of Kuelap are located at the summit of a hill that rises on the left bank of the Utcubamba, having like axis 26º24'26 LS and 77º54'16 LOG, according to the engineer Hernán Corbera. Access to Kuelap is gained via a steep footpath that departs from El Tingo, a town at approximately 2000m of altitude near the bank of the Utcubamba. During a short walking journey of 8 km approximately, a brief stretch, the walker is forced to climb, in only 3 hours, 1 000 m approximately. However nowadays, the access is also possible by a horse by-path that winds next to the left margin of Tingo river. After crossing it, it allows people, at 4 hours trip approximately, reach Marcapampa, a small plain located in the proximities of the monument.
The ruins of Kuelap, which are situated at 3000 m above sea level, are characterized by its monumental condition. They are constituted by a big platform faced from south to north, which settles on the top of a calcareous rock and which construction should have demanded physical efforts of big proportions. The platform spreads along almost 600 m and its walls rise up to 19 m.
On the platform raise, cornered, a second and third andenes. Because of its extension, these flat elevations support about 400 constructions, most of them cylindrical. From them, only its bases remain. In some cases, there are some decorated walls with friezes of symbolic content that, in general, seem to evoke eyes and birds that take the form of a letter V in chain. Between many of the constructions that are in Kuelap, three are the structures that emphasize the most:
- El Tintero, it is placed in the south end of the biggest anden and it is characterized for being a circular turret in the shape of an inverted cone, a real challenge to the laws of gravity.
- La Atalaya, it is also shaped by a turret, and it is located in the north end of Kuelap.
- El Castillo, it is a construction that is located in the most conspicuous sector of Kuelap and it stands out on the top anden.
The ascension to the first platform was exercised by two portals, both located in the west or principal frontage; the third one placed towards the side of a cliff that gives to the west, more than an entry, it must have been an "exit" to the abyss and for that reason, act as access to a sacrifices place.
The best preserved portal and probably the principal one, is located in the south side of the frontispiece that gives on the west. It reaches, in its base, 3 m wide and its jambs narrow when they rise for approximately 10 m. For the ascension to the platform, this portal necessarily draws into the "anden", cutting it like a piece of a cake had moved back; perhaps it symbolizes an immense vulva.
At the time of going inside, the entry shows a passage that is climbing on a shape of a ramp flanked by walls that award the aspect of an "alley". This one goes narrowing up to allow, in its final stretch, the pass of one person by something like a narrow tunnel, to which a person arrived after a trip of 20 m. In here the ramp reaches the floor of the first platform. Although in the entry sector the jambs end almost touching each other in their top end, the walls that flank the passage turn this sector into a species of "alley" without roof, inclining towards the interior as they go rising.
Considering its monumental character, it is undoubted that in the past of the Chachapoyas culture, Kuelap should have redeemed a leading role. It is clear that it is a monument previous to the Inca Empire. In effect, the architecture of Kuelap is, in general terms, the same one that dominated and characterizes the cultural area of the Chachapoyas. What has not been possible to specifie till now is in what moment of the long process of development of the Chachapoyas culture, whose beginnings might go back to the VIIIth century A.C., the monument of Kuelap was raised. The time that its flowering lasted and when and for what reason was left is also unknown.
There are other aspects that could not have been elucidated: the exploit that demanded a colossal construction like Kuelap and the skill of the engineers who could provide it with a sophisticated system of rains water drainage. At present, because its pipelines are obstructed, the monument has been swelling up. After the big platform is being dilated this way, the wall stones that re-dress it are becoming detached. It has not also been clarified how the water supply was carried out; perhaps some of the enclosures that lacked of access, have served as places where water was reserved. The others enclosures, most of them, should have been food storehouses like the tambos of the Incas, shaping a considerable conglomerate of granaries.
Regarding the function that Kuelap had, there is not also a completely satisfactory response. Popularly it is qualified as "fortress", because of its place and high walls that support its principal platform. Adolf Bandelier and especially Louis Langlois tried to demonstrate that Kuelap, was more than a fortress, it might have been a fortified place destined to serve as refuge to the population in emergency cases. They attributed to it, probably by analogy, the same destination as the European medieval boroughs.
The high walls that veneered the platform and the tightness of the access to the citadel in its final stretch, suggest in effect, that the monument of Kuelap could be constructed for offering a defensive character, or at least, it should have been a place that was protected against intruders. But this possibility does not necessarily annul the others, perhaps of major transcendency.
This way, taking into consideration the function redeemed by the monumental architecture in the Peruvian archaeological past in general, the same one that was related to the socioeconomic needs, it can be concluded that Kuelap could be basically a pre-inca sanctuary. A powerful aristocracy lived in it, whose primary mission was to administer food production, taking control of it and doing some magic practices, in order to have the collaboration of the supernatural power that governed the atmospheric phenomena and that made to rain in excess or flogged with droughts making the existence be in danger.
Some time ago, diverse mausoleums were found, not on purpose, on the banks of a lagoon baptized as "Laguna de las Momias" (Mummies' lagoon) located in an inaccessible and uninhabited place of the district of Leimebamba, province of Chachapoyas.
The first exploratory expedition integrated by archaeologists was directed by Federico Kauffmann Doig, in May-June, 1997. Five mausoleums, that were protected by a cave that presents rock paintings, were replete with funeral bundles, objects of ceramics, quipus, etc., attributable to the Chachapoyas culture.
The graves begun to be plundered by stockbreeders who sighted them when they were walking around the area of the lagoon. When they realized that the mummies were not presenting any jewelry nor any other adornments of precious metals desisted from pillaging them; this way, about thirty funeral bundles have been saved from the plundering. Such discovery would allow the archaeologists to continue their works to establish new bases of knowledge.
[edit] Rediscovery
Juan Crisóstomo Nieto, a judge from the city of Chachapoyas, rediscovered Kuelap in the 1840s. At that time, the site had been abandoned for several hundred years and was overgrown by vegetation. His discovery remained unpublished until 1892, but as news of the discovery spread, it attracted several 19th-century explorers and scientists such as Adolph Bandelier, Ernst Middendorf, Charles Wiener and Antonio Raimondi. Referred to as the 'Machu Picchu of the north,' Kuelap receives few visitors today due to its remote location.
[edit] References
- von Hagen, Adriana. The Chachapoya from the Museo Leymebamba website.
