The Lima Temple and Others in the Ancient Land of Peru

We are in the midst of a number of important dates in Peru. The 28th of July was Peruvian Independence Day and this year coincided with the inauguration of a new president.  June 21 is the Winter Solstice for the Southern Hemisphere and corresponds with the first month of the Incan New Year. The festival associated with this is called Inti Raymi, or festival of the sun god. The festival is held on the 24th of June as the sun appeared to stand still for several days according to the Inca. It was practiced for several years following the Spanish Conquest, but suppressed for more than 400 years. Currently recreated from early accounts of Spanish chronicles it is performed annually in Cusco having begun again in 1944.

The Inti Raymi festival being reenacted above Cusco at the fortress of Sacsayhuaman

We continue to be fascinated with the culture and sophistication with which the Inca and the previous cultures of Peru tracked their world and planned their lives around solar and stellar observations. We have arranged a tour this week to the oldest solar observatory in the Americas which dates to 400 BCE.  It is known as Chanquillo. The culture and people who built it are so far unidentified by scientists, though a number of ceramic figurines have been recovered illustrating distinct classes of the former inhabitants including warriors. Ancient weapons have also been recovered from the site. Aside from the fascinating 13 towers that dominate the skyline of one hill there, a significant fortress dominates the remains of the community with thick and high walls. Warfare then was likely known at Chanquillo. We'll be posting photos and writing about that experience.

The windows of the Temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu allow the morning

sun to bisect the altar stone.  In addition the rise of Pleiades was observed

along with other astronomical events. The Temple is still being studied by
archaeoastronomers.

The first of August is an important time for the people of the Andes and the Inca. A little more than a month after the rising of Pleiades, the Sapa Inca or the Incan Emperor, would ceremoniously begin to furrow the ground with his gold tipped plow putting in the first maize. The Pleiades star cluster was known amongst most all ancient cultures and is mentioned three times in the Old Testament including the 38th chapter of Job, verse 31, wherein Jehovah asks this question of Job, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?"

Windows marked A and B determined the solstices. The rising of Pleiades or

Collca is observed through Window A. PW is the problem window as the scientists

are still determining its function

The exterior of the Temple of the Sun with Windows A & B clearly shown.
Note the projections built into the stone walls. Experts believe these held
attachements utilized for solar or astronomical purposes. Likely they were
made of gold or some other precious metal. 

Festivals accompanied the many important dates in the Inca calendar that ordered the life of the people of the Andes as they did elsewhere in the world through the millenia. Indigenous farmers then and now still climb to the tops of the mountains to observe Pleiades or Collca or Catachillay as it is known in Quechua, (the predominant language of the Inca), to ascertain and predict with some accuracy how well their crops will do in the coming growing season.  Apparently, their success in predicting weather patterns and most importantly the rainfall during the rainey season two months ahead is accurate to at least 65% of the time, putting them on a par, or ahead of Mark Eubank's Weatherbank technology. All of this by observing the Pleiades as it rises in the early morning horizon. At the time of its rising it could appear less brilliant and fewer stars would be counted. The number of stars visible would allow the farmers to make accurate climate predictions. Scientists have concluded they were in reality measuring the water content of the upper atmosphere which was directly tied to the strength of the Humboldt Current off Peru's coast and the troublesome presence of El Niño. El Niño brings drought to the farmers of the Andes.

Subaru is the name the Japanese have given to the Pleiades. Thanks Watson 

for the discussion on this star cluster.

Temples, huacas, stones, pillars, and towers were once scattered throughout western South America, but few survived the Spanish colonial period, except in Machu Picchu. We will be visiting it again in just over a week. The Lima Temple is closed for two weeks for semiannual maintenance. High on our list will be the Intihuatana Stone and the Temple of the Sun. At the Temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu, and the remains of what is left of a similar temple in Cusco, scientists have long speculated but now confirmed their orientation and architecture was important in determining these astronomical events, such as the rising of Pleiades. Other events included the winter and summer solstices and the equinox were determinmed and more still awaiting discovery.  The very lives and survival of the Andean peoples depended on their ability to accurately determine optimum conditions to plant, tend, and harvest their crops of potatoes, maize, quinoa, peppers and other tubers in their delicate environment.

The planting of potatoes on an Andean hillside as it is done today

More than 3,000 kinds of potatoes have been identified in Peru. Many of them grow in elevations close to 12-13,000 feet.  They first seem to have been domesticated near Lake Titicaca some 8000 years ago. The conquistadores took them back to Europe on their return journeys in addition to the gold, silver and precious gems they took from the Inca.

The Temple of the Sun at Machu Picchu combines the three levels 

of the Incan cosmology, the earth beneath wherein is this lower

level which was the Royal Tomb of the Inca Emperor Pachacuti. His 

mummy would have been stored there and brought our for the 

various festivals observed by the Inca. The ground floor contains

 the altar stone with the marks for determining various astronomical

and solar events. The windows allowed observation of the heavens.

Temples performed important functions for the Inca and their predecessors as they provided bearings, dates, and connections to the events in the lives of the former inhabitants of the Andes.  Hugh Nibley, Mormon apologist, linguist, and professor of ancient scripture at BYU, has written extensively about temples, whether they were of a Babylonian Ziggurat configuration, Hopi Kivas, Egyptian or Greek Temples, or Stonehenge on the Plain of Salisbury. On this subject he wrote: "The temple is the meeting point of the three cosmic regions, heaven, earth, and the abode of the dead. From the earliest times, temples have been built as scale models of the universe. There are three temples, one in heaven, one on earth, and one beneath the earth. The three are identical, one being built exactly over the other, with the earth temple in the very middle of everything, representing the pole or axis mundi of the heavens, around which all heavenly motions revolve, the knot that ties earth and heaven together, the seat of universal dominion. Here the four cardinal directions meet, and here the three worlds make contact." That role seems to have been adequately filled by theses wonderful stone structures, huacas, and temples of the Inca. 

RA to the side of a chicha de jora pot used for the preparation 

and fermentation of the Incan corn like beer. I have read that 

once you get past the notion that the corn was previously 

chewed in the mouths of quechua women it has a very 

nice flavor. The chewing starts the breakdown of complex

starches into fermentable sugars. 

The festival associated with the first of August is known as Herranza for a number of communities in Peru.  Associated with this festival are the herding and branding of animals. Chicha de jora is shared, though in the days of the Inca if anyone got too drunk they were executed. Chicha was also poured into the earth. The smoking of tobacco, chewing of coca leaves, singing and dancing, and the consumption of good food are part of the modern festival.

A recent batch of quinoa with onions, peppers, and tomatoes.

This food was reserved for the Sapa Inca and the nobility of the empire. 

We enjoy it for breakfast and other times. RA makes hers with nuts

and raisins. 

We will be making additonal quinoa and chicaha morada, the non alcoholic variety, in honor of this festival and the beginning of the planting season of the Inca. We will drink some, and pour some into mother earth or Pachamama, which is the quechua name for this grand and wonderful place we live and share with each other. Of course, not often in harmony and peace.  We do this in honor and out of respect for those who were here before us and their descendants we associate with each day. We will do this as we plant our aji rocoto and limo peppers.

In our neighborhood of La Molina we have a Pre-Inca huaca

or temple that is aligned with the cardinal directions of the

compass. It is called Huaca Melgarejo. It dates to the Lima
culture who occupied this part of modern Peru from 100 AD
to 650 AD.

Our walks often take us by this adobe temple mound in La  Molina. I used the digital compass and determined its orientation to the cardinal directions of the compass. I am reminded of Brigham Young's comments when the cornerstones of the Salt Lake Temple were laid to the cardinal directions. President McKay changed the architect's orientation of the Los Angeles Temple and rotated it to face East to assure its proper alignment.  Architectural aspects of the Lima LDS Temple are aligned similarly.  When Brother Nibley saw the groundwork of the Provo Temple he discovered it was not correctly aligned and wrote a letter to Salt Lake about it.  It was not changed but remains in better harmony orienting it with the hill on which it stands according to the architects.

The Pleiades Star Cluster, part of the constellation of Taurus the Bull or

Collca or Catachillay as it was known among the Inca, their predecessors,

and descendants

We continue to be impressed with the knowledge of the former inhabitants of Peru, their ability to understand their environment, sustain life, and build the greatest and most advanced empire in the Americas prior to coming of the Europeans.