Encyclopedia of the Incas

■ADRIANA    VON HAGEN

PLANNING, SETTLEMENT
As Tahuantinsuyu expanded, the Incas launched a massive construction program,
building works of infrastructure as well as new settlements. The new
infrastructure included an extensive road network, innumerable agricultural
terraces, and wide-ranging irrigation systems. The Incas spanned canyons and
rivers with ingenious suspension bridges, a technology hitherto unknown to the
Europeans. In conjunction with works of infrastructure, the Inca built fortresses,
tambos (way stations), administrative centers, royal estates, and religious
sanctuaries. At tambos and administrative centers, in particular, they built large
storage facilities holding a variety of goods from food, to clothing, and
weaponry, among other things, that provided for the needs of the traveling Inca
ruler and his entourage, the army on the move, the state religion, and the local
population.
Several Spanish chronicles suggest that Inca planners made clay models to
visualize their concept of new settlements. In developing their concepts the Incas
took into account a number of factors: location, function, terrain, landscape, and
orientation, among others. Most settlements were strategically located along an
Inca road. Many were built on vacant land; in other cases the Inca adopted and
transformed existing settlements. Way stations were typically spaced about a
day’s travel apart; administrative centers appear to have been placed near
concentrations of local ethnic groups; most royal estates were focused on the
Cuzco heartland; sanctuaries, devoted almost exclusively to religious activities,
were state installations at recognized Andean holy places.