The Inca Sun God Obsession

Saturday June 8, 2013

Fig. 1   Pachacama map 

Fig. 2   Mamacona  

I was worried when Dr. Brown said that we were going to drive out to some Archaeological site that was in the middle of nowhere. Especially when we pulled up and it only looked like one building and had a bunch of stray dogs. It was actually very interesting to walk through the dig site and imagine what the city was like back when it was in use and the views were incredible. 

Fig. 3  Mamacona

The Inca relied heavily on the sun for everything including agriculture, time, season, weather etc. We can see what the Inca find important by looking at the highest point in the city. In Pachacama, the highest point is the Temple of the Sun. There is another building, the Mamacona (Acllawasi), which was actually built by the Inca “for women dedicated to the cult of the sun god, and for the production of goods for the temple” (Pachacama site, sign 11). 

Fig. 4   Sun Temple 

We observed that the Sun Temple had one slanted side. As we further discussed, we believe that it may have been built to where the one slanted side was towards the sun. It is interesting to note, that if you look at the site map and compare the Sun Temple with the Mamacona you will notice that they appear to both be angled to the north east and lying on the same plane. I believe that this was done because the women were dedicated to the sun god and so they would want to face towards the sun.  There were also multiple walls that were also facing to the north east leading us to believe that this may have been done for keeping track of time for knowing when to plant which crops and what not. 

Fig. 5 North-South Street

We also were able to see all the different ways in which the walls could be constructed including stone with mortar, stone without mortar, brick etc. Some of these are seen in the North-South Street (Fig. 5) from the grounds.