The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire eds. by Ramiro Matos Mendieta and José Barreiro (review)

This book is a work of art, with beautiful photos decorating almost every page. The Great Inka Road is probably not meant to be read from beginning to end, designed instead to be leafed through like a coffee table book; when one of the amazing images catches your eye, pause and read the two- or three-page accompanying text.

Editors Matos Mendieta and Barreiro did an excellent job in assembling the strongest team of scholars to write the text for the twenty-six separate sections. The many visually arresting images offered throughout feature the stunning South American landscape, woven cord bridges, Inka stone masonry, ceramics, gold and silver work, along with exquisite reproductions of the drawings by Filipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1535-1616) and nineteenth century travel writer Ephraim George Squire, and several carefully rendered maps.

The 25,000 miles of Inka road (the Qhapaq Ñan in the indigenous Quechua language) reached from Colombia in the north to Argentina and Chile in the south, with one main branch running along the coast and another knifing through the difficult terrain of the highlands. To navigate through the Andes, the Inka built stairways, tunnels, and suspension bridges, constructed retaining walls, and cut in drainage for streams and rainwater runoff. The Inka assembled all of this without the benefit of draft animals, iron, or the wheel, carrying out much of the construction during the reign of the most remarkable Inka king, Pachacutic (1438 - 1471). Europeans marveled at the Inka engineering but could not equal it; Europe would not see their own suspension bridges until the late-1700s.

Moving along the many trails and roads were Inka runners, or chaskis, with their mnemonic khipus, record-keeping strings, in hand. Chaskis sped messages to the Shapa Inka, the Inka king, and his panaca, or royal family, in Cusco. Each chaski would run a couple of miles before handing off the message to the next runner stationed at a chaskiwasis (relay post hut). Supplies streamed into Cusco and out again with the advancing Inka armies, accompanied by vast trains of giant-sized llama hauling up to 100 pounds each. All along the route were tampus (rest houses) and community warehouses (colcas) filled with freeze-dried potatoes (chuñu), sundried alpaca meat (charki), coca leaves, and other supplies.

Several key themes emerge in this work, updating and revising our understanding of the Inka road. The authors see the Qhapaq Ñan as the Americas' "largest archeological site" (153). Certainly, the road served economic and political functions, channeling tribute payments to the capital, reinforcing Cusco's control of newly acquired territories, and ultimately opening a path for the conquering Spanish. But the Qhapaq Ñan was much more, for in its overall layout, reach, and design, the route carried deep cultural and spiritual meanings. The land of the Inka was, and is, "a world … alive and inhabited by positive and negative forces … in the land, mountains, and water" (18).

For the Inka, duality counted for much, and the ayni (reciprocity) of the ancient minka (labor exchange) underlay the construction and upkeep of the Qhapaq Ñan. The roadways radiated out of Cusco, the chawpi, or center, of the Inka territory of Tawantinsuyu, the land of the four corners, pivoting off of the location of critical spiritual landmarks, especially ushnus, the "sacred altars of the sun," (7) set near the apus, or mountain gods.

In addition to the actual highway were imaginary religious ritual roads, or ceques, which priests and sacrificial victim designees would traverse. The ceques radiated outward from Cusco in straight lines pointed to sacred sites, an arrangement that strongly resembled a khipu when set out in a circle. This resemblance, several authors stress, was no accident, and the ceques, like the khipu, carried numerical codes, the ceques functioning like land-based calendars.

Especially strong in this volume is the treatment of how we have acquired knowledge...