The Vilcabamba region of southeastern Peru continues to be a fascinating field of research for scholars of Inca culture. High in the mountains near the ancient capital, Cusco, a series of strategic cities were built in the heyday of the empire. Many of them have already been deciphered, like Machu Picchu, discovered by Hiram Bingham, in 1911, in an expedition sponsored by the National Geographic Society.
And it was also there, in a still secret spot between the mountains and the forests, the namesake city where the last Inca ruler, Tupac Amaru, fought to the death against the Spanish conquerors, in 1572. His father, Manco ?Inca, horrified by the atrocities committed by the invaders, had fled Cusco 36 years earlier. to establish a resistance front in Vilcabamba. Tupac Amaru inherited his courage but ended up defeated, and his name and his struggle still inspire the libertarian ideals of popular movements in Latin America. Their legendary haven, however, was never found.
The mystery may be over. At a point about 35 kilometers from Machu Picchu, a group of researchers led by Peter Frost, a photographer and scholar of the Inca culture for 30 years, and Peruvian archaeologist Alfredo Valencia Zegarra, from the University of San Antonio Abad, in Cusco. managed to reach a set of ruins that, because of the location and age of a number of artifacts, may actually have been the Inca defense ghetto.
The archaeological site, on top of a mountain known as Cerro Victoria, had already been spotted by Frost and the American explorer Scott Gorsuch in 1999. It took two years of logistical preparation for the difficult expedition (also funded by the National Geographic Society), which took place in June of last year, but it was only released now. "This place offers us wide perspectives:it keeps traces of the Inca presence from the beginning to the last breath of their civilization", evaluates Frost. "If they arrived here, the Spaniards only entered the southernmost area of the city."
The stretch to be studied on the mountain is actually much larger than they had imagined two years earlier. The site spreads over 6 square kilometers at an altitude of over 3,600 meters, in a region where the Andes begin to decline and give way to the Amazon. From this area, surrounded by humid forests, the Incas could contemplate peaks of up to 6 thousand meters. "I think they chose the place for two reasons. One of them is prospecting for silver mines in the surroundings," speculates Frost. “But Cerra Victoria is still a point that offers a splendid view of the surrounding snowy peaks, to which the Incas probably organized worship ceremonies. Sun.
None of the cities studied in the Vilcabamba region have so far shown evidence of being the last stronghold of the Incas, but Cerro Victoria is the largest and most significant Inca site discovered since archaeologist Gene Savoy hit the ruins of the city of Vilcabamba La Vieja. , nearby, in 1964. The "urban layout" of the top of Victoria features a set of circular buildings, as well as walls, ceremonial platforms, roads, water channels, dam, cultivation terraces, tombs filled with Incan artifacts and a pyramid half-destroyed. The key to the riddle lies in the interpretation of ceramic pieces from two very different periods:around 1200, the time of the rise of the empire, and the mid-16th century (the final phase of Tupac Amaru's struggle against Spanish tyranny). ). "The mountain holds a huge set of archaeological relics", comments archaeologist Zegarra. "The site promises to provide valuable new insights into the occupation of this remote area," adds researcher Johan Reinhard, a National Geographic Society Fellow.
The expedition was an adventure for the group. The access difficulties contributed to increase the mystique about the place, which is a four-day walk from the nearest road. Explorers were forced to conquer the 3,300-meter-deep Apurimac Canyon, and mule troops were used to carry supplies of water and food up the mountain. Despite the astonishment of the researchers at the discoveries, Cerro Victoria was not unknown to the natives of the region:two indigenous families lived in the place, which they called Coryhuayrachina. By the end of the year Peter Frost and his team will return to the site on a larger expedition to carry out further research. And then they will have more subsidies to elucidate one of the most important and still obscure chapters of Inca history.
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