Chinchaysuyo Ceque Lines (Greater Cusco)
Cusco Radial Ceque System · Chinchaysuyo Suyu Geoglyphic Alignments
Late Horizon (Inca Imperial)·Inca (Quechua)·🇵🇪 Cusco Region, Cusco Province, Peru
About
About Chinchaysuyo Ceque Lines (Greater Cusco)
High-altitude (3,400 m) radial sacred geography of the Inca capital: 41 ceque lines radiating from Coricancha/Qorikancha to huaca shrines bounding Sacsayhuamán pampa and Chinchaysuyo suyu. Bauer (1998) and Zuidema mapped 328 huacas on 41 ceques; northern Chinchaysuyo lines manifest as 0.8-2.5 km cleared swaths and stone alignments on Sacsayhuamán and Puca Pucara paramo, visible as crop/parch marks and 1.2 m wide stone-walled corridors. Not desert varnish figures but geoglyphic in scale and function: pilgrimage procession ways and calendrical sightlines. Elevation and Inca UNESCO 273 Cusco core buffer partially protect; urban encroachment and eucalyptus plantation threaten paramo alignments.
Why it mattersLargest Inca ritual geoglyphic landscape, paradigm of Andean spatial cosmology.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Ceque chronometry function
Theories
- 01Calendrical sightline system
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.1400-1532 CE (Inca Imperial), huacas reused from Killke
- Period
- Late Horizon (Inca Imperial)
- Culture
- Inca (Quechua)
- Builders
- Inca ayllu labour under ceque administrators
- Purpose
- Processional and calendrical radial ritual landscape binding empire to capital
- Abandoned
- 1534 CE (Spanish)
- Rediscovered
- Bauer-Zuidema 1990s mapping
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
1438
Pachacuti reorganizes ceque
1998
Bauer The Sacred Landscape publication
On the ground
Structures & features
13.5200° S · 71.9800° W · 3400 m · 2 mapped features
Chinchaysuyo 9th Ceque Huaca Alignment
earthwork2.1 km stone-aligned ceque segment north of Sacsayhuamán
13.5180° S · 71.9820° WPuca Pucara Ceque Terminus Huaca
geoglyph12-m platform huaca at ceque terminus 12 km from Coricancha
13.5250° S · 71.9750° W