Encyclopedia of the Incas

Cuzco’s central Aucaypata plaza in this manner; a similar structure graces the
main upper plaza in Incallacta, Bolivia. Finally, the term ushnu is frequently
applied to any platform flanking or in the center of a plaza at an Inca site,
regardless of form or function.
While these descriptions are the two most commonly used by archaeologists,
R. Tom Zuidema has argued that the term originally referred to an opening or a
duct into the ground through which liquids could be poured. According to
Zuidema, only later did the term refer to the structures described above, and only
if these were associated with an opening or duct, he argues, is the ushnu
appellation correct.
Neither the term ushnu nor any of its variations is mentioned by any of the
earliest western visitors to the Inca Empire. Betanzos and Pedro Pizarro do not
employ the word in describing the platform, upright stone, and basin complex
found in Cuzco’s central plaza. Nor does Pedro de Cieza de León use the term
to describe the largest of what is now considered the prototypical ushnu, the
stepped structure at Vilcashuaman. The word’s earliest use is found in Domingo
de Santo Tomás’s Quechua dictionary published in 1560, almost a decade later
than Betanzos and Cieza, in which he defines it as “altar” without further
elaboration. Only in the 1570s do other chroniclers such as Cristóbal de
Albornoz and Cristóbal de Molina begin to employ this term in connection
with Cuzco’s Aucaypata plaza.
Colonial chroniclers and modern scholars have interpreted ushnus as sanctified
central spaces, openings into which libations and other offerings were made,
stages from which the Inca king and lords could preside over festivals and
ceremonial events, seats of the Sun, and places from where astronomical
observations were made. Determining which or how many of these functions
occurred at a particular ushnu is often problematic, reflecting the paucity of
detailed historical descriptions (most of which are focused on Cuzco) and the
lack of modern excavations and published reports. Only the Anonymous
Chronicler, writing in the late sixteenth^ or^ early seventeenth century, for
example, associates an ushnu (that of Aucaypata, Cuzco) with astronomical
observations related to the agricultural calendar, while modern scholars have
suggested that the site of Huánuco Pampa was organized and constructed around
a series of astronomical alignments emanating from its ushnu.
Nevertheless, almost all chroniclers and scholars agree that ushnus were places
reserved for rituals, spectacles, and religious and political performances, though
the same performances may not have been performed at each such stage or