Inka Roads, Lines, and Rock Shrines: A Discussion of the Contexts of Trail Markers

Abstract

This essay discusses how Andean people have "constructed" nature with four categories of Inka rock wak'as (shrines) located on trails. Three groups consist of sculpted rocks on physical roads. The fourth category refers to the concept of extended zeq'es (radial lines and paths marked by shrines) which structured the natural and social environment of Cusco and probably of other Inka towns. I show that the Inka modified boulders on physical and conceptual roads and zeq'es for practical and symbolic reasons related, on the one hand, to the pan-Andean worship of mountains and, on the other hand, to a specifically Inka stone ideology made material in a politically conceptualized ideational landscape. The concept of extended zeq'es may provide a context for some poorly understood carved rocks in the Inka empire. Contemporary religious practices recreate some of these lines with regional pilgrimages and the scheduling of feast days. Part of these practices is the worship of holy images painted on sacred rocks, and Jesus is turned into a mountain deity. The essay places Inka stone trail markers in the wider context of an Andean identity informed by its sacred geography and culturally constructed processual landscape.