Qullqa

Qullqa above Ollantaytambo, Peru

A qullqa (Quechua pronunciation: [ˈqʊʎˌqa] "deposit, storehouse"; other spelling variants: colca, collca, qolca, qollca) is a storage structure found along the roads of the Inca Empire's road system. Qullqa is a silo that produced for store foods that collected as tribute. It is not only a granary where grains were stored, but also an underground cavern that mallkis stored. Qullqas are distinct from the tampu, the tampu was meant for more than storage. There are many more qullqas than tampus.

Size, Numbers and Location

Qullqa (Inca Warehouse) by Guaman Poma

The average interior diameter of a small qullqa is 3.23 metres (10.6 ft); larger qullqas have a diameter of around 3.5–4.0 metres (11.5–13.1 ft). These smaller qullqa could have held 3.7 cubic metres (100 US bushels) of maize, and those larger qullqa could have held about 5.5 cubic metres (160 US bushels) maize.

The largest number of qullqas, 2,573 of them, was built in the Mantaro Valley. Half of them were placed in the center of this grain-producing area, another half scattered among 48 compounds along the river. In total, the qullqas of the Mantaro Valley have a storage area of 170 thousand square meters, being the largest storage facility in pre-Columbian America. These warehouse in Mantaro Valley supplied and equipped 35,000 auxiliaries.

Each provincial center of the Empire had hundreds of qullqas built row after row on nearby hills. Some of the qullqas built around Cusco also supplied local artisans and their products. These storehouse, qullqa, are found in most of the best-preserved administrative center, along with usnu, inkawasi, aqllawasi, and temple of the sun.

Other

Qullqa is an economic asset and strategic asset for Inka people. These storehouse kept tributes, and also could supply Inka armies because they are built along the roads. It is also made to make sure when to start planting, predict rainfall, and the size of harvest.

Qullqa and tampu served as storehouse showed the banking power of Inka empire.

Qullqa is also the local name for the constellation Pleiades. The Inca deity Qullqa, personified in the Pleiades, was the patron of warehousing and preserving seeds for the next season. Of all the stellar pantheon worshipped by Incas, Qullqa was the "mother", the senior over all heavenly patrons of earthly things.

See also

• Inca Empire
• Tampu: Tambo (Incan structure)
• Inca road system

Reference

• Terence N. D'Altroy (2003). The Incas. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 1-4051-1676-5.
• Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingue Iskay Simipi Yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish Dictionary)
• Timothy Parsons (2010). The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199746194
• Terence N. D'Altroy (1992). Provincial Power in The Inca Empire. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 9781560981152.
• International Sociological Association (1981). Comparative Urban Research, Volumes 8-9.
• Denise Y. Arnold, Christine A. Hastorf (2008). Heads of State: Icons, Power, and Politics in The Ancient and Modern Andes. Lest Coast Press. ISBN 9781598741711.