Tambo Colorado in Peru’s Pisco valley is one of the best preserved Inca coastal
settlements. Built of adobe, its walls still retain traces of red, yellow, and white
paint. A low ushnu, or ceremonial platform, graces the western end of the plaza.
Jean-Pierre Protzen.Discernible at many way stations, administrative centers, and military
settlements are the callancas facing the main plaza. There they served not only
for festivities, but also as temporary accommodations. Administrative centers
were said to have included a palace, an acllahuasi, and a Temple of the Sun.
Without specific historic or archeological data, it is difficult to know whether a
cancha is a palace, a residence, or an administrative or religious compound,
since they hardly differ in design. The few positively identified acllahuasi, on
the other hand, are so dramatically different from each other that they provide
even fewer clues for the identification of other such structures.
Extensive storage facilities were primarily associated with administrative
centers, although storehouses existed at many other settlement types. Integral to
many settlements are terraces, both for agricultural production and for the
support of buildings, as well as waterworks for utilitarian and ceremonial
purposes. The construction of terraces often required massive movement of
earth. Yet, gigantic as these transformations were, the terraces did not destroy the
landscape but rather accentuated the topography. The most elegant terraces and