MENU' Architecture Agriculture Arts Khipu The ceremonies Nazca’s drawings

The Andean culture was established around Titicaca lake ( the highest navigable river, 4000m. above sea level) and it spread out to a very large area of South America, to then reach its’ maximum splendor during the TawantinsuyoTawantinsuyo’s time. The Andean culture has a different view on the world compare to other cultures and it is the opposite to the European one. In the Andean culture the astronomic landmark isn’t the polar star but the South Cross. The ancient Peruvians, by using reasoning, analogies and imagination they developed sacred mathematics in order to explain the live nature (Pachamama) and they arrived at the conclusion whereby the woman had to be the first human being to appear on earth. The prime divinity of the Andean’s religion is the Pachamama, the Goddess of Nature, the cosmic Mother. The Andeans developed the collective thought, where “us” is more important than “I”. This culture is in fact a female’s culture, which is the opposite to the western one that is male and individualist. The Andean culture took over 10.000 years to develop, during which the ancient Peruvians also developed science, technology and art to defend life and peace.

Andean science an technology served the purpose to guarantee life, welfare and comfort of the citizens. When the Spanish arrived, they found a very advanced architecture: imposing stone constructions carefully treated that occurred in different shapes and dimensions that often weighed over 10 to 20 tons. There was also a very wide road network that would connect the whole territory and efficient sanitary measures to supply water in all cities (Toledo, the most important city in Spain had, at that time, 50.000 inhabitants whereas Cuzco, at that time the capital city of Peru’, had 200.000 inhabitants). They had also set up a storage system of clothes and foods that could have been used in case of draught, at pandemic times or during wars. The Andean city planning didn’t have anything to envy to the modern knowledge. Machupichu is the living example as, still today, it is a first work of civil engineering, architecture and urbanity, built according to ecological standards that was typical of those times. The roads, temples and cities were built according to demographic criteria that would guarantee comfort, security and health of the citizens. Click on the pictures to enlarge them Back to the menu’

Agriculture was organic and biodynamic (it would be careful with the balance between matter and energy). The Andeans built large terracing in order to guarantee the correct oxygenation of plants while optimizing the use of water. They knew genetic and biology principals and would use their knowledge to develop agriculture. Today 60% of the vegetable products present in the world come from the Andean technology. Potatoes, for example, a toxic plant for the high content of solanine, was turned into an edible tuber of which they created more then 2.500 different varieties: an important seed counter! They were able to tame wild animals and guarantee the conservation of the species with ecological principals, assuring supplying of meat, wool, leather and necessary textiles that at that time were made out of lama’s, alpaca’s, guanaco’s and vicuna and also bird feathers and rodent’s fur. Click on pictures to enlarge them Back to the menu’

ARTS

The Andean culture, in order to develop man’s soul, promoted also arts like painting, monument sculpturing, ceramics that were all very rich with geometrical pictures of which we sense the existence of a sacred geometry. Click on pictures to enlarge them Music, singing and dancing were peoples’ elements and a good opportunity to party and to pray. Numerous musical instruments made out of clay, cane, shells, bones, leather, metals like gold and copper are evidence of the musical development and physics’ knowledge (acoustic, stereophony and rhythmic, etc…). Dancing was the instrument of corporeal expression and music and singing were also blatantly important to reach relaxation, a mental balance and purification. Click on pictures to enlarge them The beauty of Peruvian’s textiles, their colors and symbols are evidence of a very developed textiles’ art of which several pieces, of about 500 years old, are suitable for all in many museums around the world. The colorants were extracted from plants and animals and in small quantities also from minerals which have appeared to be time proof. Click on pictures to enlarge them Gold, silver and copper were the most used metals. Everybody knows the “gold from the Inca” of which a small part of famous jewels, which luckily got away from the Spanish greed, are today exhibited in a few museums. Back to the menu’

CEREMONIES

Marriage: The heart of the communal life system is a fabric shaped in a circle, to which are attached 360 stings. Two of these are given to the couple on their wedding day. Those are hanged in the house and they represent some sort of indicator of what is happening. When one of the partners is unjust to the other, he has to take one of the strings and move it to the side (there are five days of the year, that correspond to village holidays, where it is possible to misbehave without having to move one of the string to the side). Every year the witnesses go to the bride’s and the bridegroom’s house and ask to let them see the position of the strings. If a woman has left all the strings in the original positions, she will be rewarded with great honors and for the rest of the year she will be seen as one of the spiritual guides of the village and the same will also happen to men. On the contrary, if there are several strings out of their original positions, the responsible partner is being reprimanded by the witnesses who also try to reason with the woman and the man and sometimes they can also give severe punishments. According to statistics, in any case, separations and divorces are not frequent: thanks to a very free system that doesn’t discourage pre-marital relations and also helps young people to know each other in-depth under all circumstances before taking an important decision that will have to last, ideally, for the rest of their lives. With this free perspective, it is also interesting to look at the usage of headgear: there is one that was particularly made for virgins, who have to wear it up to the day they make love for the first time. On that day, without any embracement, they will take it off while letting the village know of her transformed condition. Click on the pictures to enlarge them Back to the menu’

NAZKA’S DRAWINGS

The green valley of Nazka, in the Southern peninsula of Paracas, that brakes the poverty of the desert, it is the most important cradle of pre-Inca civilization that was intentionally forgotten by the Inca. Today, this cultural region is less mysterious as the archeologists are revealing many of its aspects. Great works of weavings and excellent ceramics were in fact brought into light but ultimate mystery is represented by the world-famous drawings of Nazka. There is a huge network of lines, a great match between rectangles and squares that had been carved on sandy and deserted territories. There are also birds, spiders and whales of humongous dimension. Those lines, which stretch out for several miles, have all been kept in a good state of conservation, and they demonstrate that this earth had been, like it is today, a forever arid desert. Those marks are about 1500 years old. They could also be marked observations on hypothetical calendar of “trees” belonging to a genealogic symbolism. An American archeologist found out that at the end of one of those lines there was a wooden platform that would looked like an observatory. By using “carbon 14” it was found out that the observatory was about 500 years old AD. Those drawing, at first, begun to show themselves in Pisco’s valley but most of all they are concentrated in the Nazka’s valleys. The Incas felt absolute contempt for those lines and the engineers, with their practical mentality, around the 1400 AD, built a coastal road across those lines that was 24 feet large. Recently, urologists and people passionate for mysteries, noticing that those lines form drawings that could be better seen from very high heights of several kilometers, they suggest the fact that they might be extraterrestrial entities’ pieces of art. The recent weather changes are jeopardizing the conservation of those important and still mysterious cultural testimonies that were pre-existent to the Inca’s ones. Text taken freely from the book:“The Inca’s Empire” of Von Hagen, edited by Newton Click on pictures to enlarge them Back to menu’