The famous temple of the sun is the most important! It was the religious facility of the Inca, and so it is a synthesis of local organization, architecture, and religion that reached its peak of development by 1438. It possibly represented the nave of the world and so the “Navel of the pre-Hispanic Andean world.”
The first Inca ruler, Manko Qhapaq, ordered the building of the original temple. Nevertheless, the ninth Inca Pachakuteq rebuilt, enlarged, improved, and modernized it in 1438.
Other authors named it intiwasi, which means “House of the Sun.” In addition, it is called Inticancha, which means “Palace of the Sun.” While it is the most popular name, Coricancha Temple, Cusco, means “Golden Palace.”
Coricancha Temple Cusco
It was extraordinary, made of gray basaltic andesite stone from the Waqoto and Rumiqolqa quarries. The walls are made of medium- to large-sized stone blocks with rectangular outer surfaces. The structure is straight, horizontal, and convex-shaped, like one of the most important temples.
The joints and assembly between pieces of stone are so tight and perfectly made that they do not allow the insertion of even a “razor blade.” The cross-section structure is “tied up” with “H”-shaped bronze clamps or clips at the inner joints, which are fastened to the lithic pieces to prevent harmful horizontal displacements during earthquakes.
The walls also have a decreasing vertical structure, with the more significant pieces of stone in the lower part and decreasing in size so that the smaller ones are on the top. Therefore, the walls are thicker at the base than at the top, with the classical inward inclination balanced by the doorway’s trapezoidal shape, niches, and windows.
coricancha temple Inca
Coricancha Temple Cusco features walls supported by themselves, making a resistant, solid, anti-seismic structure able to resist lousy earthquake activity; some Inka walls in this building show cracks.
However, those cracks are not the result of miscalculations or failed techniques of the Quechua architects, but rather a consequence of changes carried out in colonial times, earthquakes, and the main exposure to inclement weather and erosion in Inca times.
According to some studies, the finely carved stone walls had a continuation of sun-dried mud bricks on the top, making up the very steep roof ends to enable rainwater drainage on the thatched made in wood and straw “ichu” roofing. Ichu is a wild plant widely used to roof buildings, which they decorated modestly on festive days with showy, multicolored rugs made of special feathers.
Gasparini believes that the so-often-mentioned “gold edging,” which served as a crown surrounding the entire outer upper side of the temple, blurred the distinction between the fine stone wall and the upper adobe wall.
The floor in the open areas of the temple must have been entirely and finely paved in flagstone, while the floor inside the enclosures was made of kiln-fired clay as a solid ceramic block, like the treated floors found at Machu Picchu.
koricancha temple Cusco
The present-day entrance to Santo Domingo Convent is almost in the same position, overlooking the Inti pampa (“Plaza of the Sun”), which currently occupies the small plaza in front.
According to chroniclers, this was a religious facility with temples dedicated to several deities. It had a layout similar to a classical “kancha,” with enclosures around a central patio. According to Cieza de Leon, what covered every doorway in gold plates?
Out stood from all the facilities, taking the space that the Santo Domingo Church takes. Its eastern end was demolished, while the western end still stands partially, forming what is known as the “Solar Round Building,” a semicircular wall overlooking the current Arrayan Street and Sol Avenue.
The Temple of the Sun had four walls, and the wooden ceiling was covered in gold plates and planks. According to Garcilaso’s description, it must have a rectangular floor plan and a very high, thatched roof for ventilation.
The famous Cusquenian Chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega provides the most detailed and comprehensive account of this place. The eastern wall of this temple must have been the facade and main altar, which, as is known, housed a round face with rays and flames, shaped in a gold plate, Sun God allegory.
That solar symbol was so significant that it covered the entire temple front during the distribution of treasure among the Spanish invaders. The golden piece corresponded to Mancio Sierra de Leguizamo, an inveterate gambler who lost it playing dice. The Chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa thinks that Pachakuteq Inka ordered a layout so that the sun would occupy the principal place, alongside the allegory of the Wiraqocha divinity.
On its right side, and that one of Chuquiylla (it must be thunder, lightning, and Thunderbolt) to its left side. Also, on both sides of that Sun image, the “Mallki,” the dead Inka King’s mummies or embalmed bodies, were placed, according to their antiquity, in a fetal position, over litters made of solid gold, in the “Coricancha Temple Cusco.”
qorikancha temple in Peru
The moon was the wife of the sun. Therefore, the Inca temple of the moon was located on the eastern side of the Solar Temple, “Coricancha Temple Cusco.” It had a rectangular floor plan with the best quality architecture. Unfortunately, it was almost destroyed by the building of the Santo Domingo Catholic Church. One of its gates is still visible on its eastern wall, with classical trapezoidal niches.
Among those niches, the horizontal dark stripe is believed to be the support zone of the silver plates that wholly covered those walls. In the middle of the temple was a silver moon allegory, and on both sides were the embalmed bodies of the dead Qoyas or Queens, arranged in their ancient fashion.
Divided by a narrow passage with an impressive double-jamb doorway with 14 angled stones on its outer surface, the temple of Chaska and the Stars (Chaska = Venus star) was located in Inka times. Stars were particular deities considered “the maids of the moon,” essential for celestial observation and predicting their relationship to agriculture, prosperity, welfare, etc.
Even today, Andean peasants (descendants of the Incas) observe the stars, forming constellations to foretell their future. For example, there will be droughts during the next farming season when some stars shine.
Three temple walls are almost complete; the fourth wall toward the west was destroyed during Colonial times, but it was rebuilt in accordance with its original features. Depending on the situation, those rebuilt works are sometimes made with original or new materials.
The temple of Venus is significant and has a wall with 25 trapezoidal niches, which, in most cases, are used to house offerings of idols surrounding it and others related to the cult of the star. In addition, the horizontal stripe, which supported the silver “planks” covering this temple, is located in the middle of the niches. Moreover, the entire ceiling of this enclosure featured star allegories of different sizes, “like the starry sky.”
This enclosure had two very high entrance gables, and in the wall were two unique trapezoidal niches with stripe carvings and hollows around them, which Garcilaso calls “tabernacles.” They were initially covered in gold plates and planks, and “on the molding corners there were many enchasings of precious stones such as emeralds and turquoises.”
Inside the temple, in a corner and over the stone wall, a plaster coating reveals murals, a souvenir of this fantastic temple’s colonial invasion. The rear Inca walls served as foundations for the mud-brick colonial building, which is still visible on the back wall.
The Temple of “Illapa” or “Chuki lllapa” is located on the other side of the current central patio. Illapa is a deity associated with thunder, lightning, and thunderbolts, and is considered a “servant of the sun.” According to the Inca religion, lllapa was the “Storms God,” the ruler of rain, hail, snow, and thunderbolts. Its shrine was decorated with gold.
It has three trapezoidal single-jamb doorways, and its current northwestern sidewall is partially rebuilt following its original features. This enclosure is smaller than the previously described temples, with walls showing classical trapezoidal niches and two windows in its lateral walls. There are carved moldings on the upper side of the front wall, the duty of which is unknown.
The Temple of K’uychi (Rainbow) was located with a similar original size and features. Still, it was partially mutilated to build the Dominican Convent in its northwest part. The Rainbow was another essential divinity in the Inka Society because it came from the sun.
The Inca Kings adopted it as their emblem because they claimed to be the descendants of the sun. That temple was entirely adorned in gold, and over one of its walls was painted a rainbow, with the gold plates covering the whole temple.
A trapezoidal window is precisely sized, shaped, and positioned, and is at the same level as the other two windows of the lllapa temple, creating an excellent perspective.
There is an open area on the back wall. Three finely carved channels are called “phonic channels” because they sound like “several music notes when being hit.”
However, those channels, which were placed at their original ground level, were used to drain the rainwater collected in the central patio. Similar channels are found in all facilities or buildings without roofs.
What the koricancha temple was, and what happened when the Spanish conquistadors arrived
Inside the Coricancha Temple in Cusco were several enclosures for the “Willaq Uma,” or High Priest, and the other priests, as well as spaces for housing the various idols from the submitted or incorporated nations. The conquered people were allowed to create their gods in Qoricancha.
This housing was on purpose. If there were rebellions in the conquered countries, the reprisals in Cusco were directed against their gods, and the religious intimidation that ensued brought many benefits to the Incas.
A terracing facility extended to the edge of the channeled Saphi River, which flows underground through Sol Avenue. Those terraces were part of the Qoricancha Solar Garden, probably this temple’s most extraordinary example of wealth. It was an exceptional garden because it contained specimens of the regional flora and fauna, human-sized naturalistic sculptures, and ornate gold and silver.
Early chroniclers wrote that those sculptures depicted many animals, from insects to mammals; plants, from tiny flowers to native trees; human allegories as children, men, and women; and several other precious-metal items by Quechua goldsmiths in this exceptional garden.
Nevertheless, what argued that chroniclers had written many lies and fantasies about this? Archaeological diggings slowly proved it trustworthy, as they found some golden plant and animal-shaped artifacts. The magnificence, the quality, and the number of items placed in this garden astounded all the conquerors who saw it.
They collected those items to form part of the conquest booty and later melted them down into coins or bars, making it easier to travel to Spain. That is one of three reasons why Peruvian museums are not necessary. Inca artifacts are made of precious metals.
Coricancha was the wealthiest, most elaborate, and dazzling time of the lnca Society, which stored the gold and silver of its territory. Those metals arrived as offerings for the sacred city and the temple. In Inka society, precious metals had no economic value but religious value.
Some other stuff was even more valuable than gold and silver. For example, the colored shells, or “mullu,” which came from the Ecuadorian coast, were highly valued because they represented Mamaqcocha, or “Mother Sea.”
The Inca gold was extracted from diverse veins or mines, and another large part was mined in the Amazonian rivers, where gold was found as dust or nuggets in the sand. Silver is abundant in the Andean countries, too.
After distributing houses and palaces during the Spanish invasion, the Coricancha Temple in Cusco was given to Juan Pizarro. It was donated to the Dominican Order, represented by the first bishop of Cusco City, Fray Vicente Valverde.
Who immediately built their church and convent over the most crucial Inca temple, demolishing it (almost entirely) to adapt it to its new use? An earthquake destroyed that original church on March 31, 1965. The current structure rose, and the tower, built in 1780, was no longer in the baroque style under Fray Francisco Muñoz.
On May 21, 1950, another violent earthquake destroyed much of the convent and the church. Its tower uncovered many Inka structures and the inner area of the “Solar Round Building.”
By then, a firm “Andean movement” called for moving away from the church and returning to the sun temple. Pitifully, the Catholic Church’s political power prevented it from restoring the central Tahuantinsuyo sanctuary.
Welcome to Explore the Coricancha Temple – Cusco city tour!
