Occurrence of Attributes in Original Text
The text related to the cultural heritage 'Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System' has mentioned 'Road' in the following places:
| Occurrence Sentence | Text Source |
|---|---|
| Inca road systemExtent of the Inca road systemRoute informationLength40,000xc2xa0km (20,000xc2xa0mi)Time periodPre-Columbian South America UNESCO World Heritage SiteOfficialxc2xa0nameQhapaq xc3x91an, Andean Road SystemCriteriaCultural: ii, iii, iv, viReference1459Inscription2014 (38th session)Area11,406.95 haBufferxc2xa0zone663,069.68 ha | WIKI |
| The Inca road system (also spelled Inka road system and known as Qhapaq xc3x91an[note 1] meaning "royal road" in Quechua[1]) was the most extensive and advanced transportation system in pre-Columbian South America. | WIKI |
| [5] It can be directly compared with the road network built during the Roman Empire, although the Inca road system was built one thousand years later. | WIKI |
| [6] The road system allowed for the transfer of information, goods, soldiers and persons, without the use of wheels, within the Tawantinsuyu or Inca Empire throughout a territory with an extension was almost 2,000,000xc2xa0km2 (770,000xc2xa0sqxc2xa0mi)[7] and inhabited by about 12 million people. | WIKI |
| The roads were bordered, at intervals, with buildings to allow the most effective usage: at short distance there were relay stations for chasquis, the running messengers; at a one-day walking interval tambos allowed support to the road users and the flocks of carrying llamas. | WIKI |
| Part of the road network was built by cultures that precede the Inca Empire, notably the Wari culture in the northern central Peru and the Tiwanaku culture in Bolivia. | WIKI |
| [1] Different organizations such as UNESCO and IUCN have been working to protect the network in collaboration with the governments and communities of the six countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina) through which the Great Inca Road passes. | WIKI |
| Contents 1 Extent 1.1 The four routes 2 Purposes of the road 2.1 Transportation 2.2 Trade 2.3 Military 2.4 Religious 3 History 3.1 Inca Empire era 3.2 Colonial era 3.3 Post-colonial and modern times 4 Architecture and engineering of the Inca roads 4.1 Construction and maintenance 4.2 Architectural components 4.2.1 Roadway and pavement 4.2.2 Side walls and stone rows 4.2.3 Furrows 4.2.4 Retaining walls 4.2.5 Drainage 4.2.6 Road marks 4.2.7 Paintings and mock-ups 4.3 Causeways 4.4 Stairways 4.5 Bridges 4.6 Tunnel 4.7 Equipment 5 Inca Trail to Machu Picchu 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 Further reading 11 External links | WIKI |
| I believe that, since the memory of people, it has not been read of such a greatness as this road, made through deep valleys and high peaks, snow covered mountains, marshes of water, live rock and beside furious rivers; in some parts it was flat and paved, on the slopes well made, by the mountains cleared, by the rocks excavated, by the rivers with walls, in the snows with steps and resting places; everywhere it was clean, swept, clear of debris, full of dwellings, warehouses for valuable goods, temples of the Sun, relay stations that were on this road. | WIKI |
| Road system of the Inca Empire | WIKI |
| On the Chilean side the road reached the Maipo river. | WIKI |
| [1] The Inca Road system allowed to connect the northern territories with the capital city Cusco and the southern territories. | WIKI |
| The exact extent of the road network is not completely known: travelers and scholars proposed various lengths spanning from 23,000 kilometres (14,000xc2xa0mi)[10] to 40,000 kilometres (25,000xc2xa0mi)[2]:242 to 60,000 kilometres (37,000xc2xa0mi). | WIKI |
| This western road outlines the current Pan-American Highway in its South American pacific extension. | WIKI |
| Recent investigations carried out under the Proyecto Qhapaq xc3x91an, sponsored by the Peruvian government and basing also on previous research and surveys, allow to suggest with a high degree of probability that another branch of the road system was existing on the east side of the Andean ridge, connecting the administrative centre of Huxc3xa1nuco Pampa with the Amazonian provinces and having a length of about 470 kilometres (290xc2xa0mi). | WIKI |
| This was regarded by the Incas as "the" Qhapaq xc3x91an, main road or royal road, starting from Cusco and arriving to Quito. | WIKI |
| One branch headed towards the current Mendoza region of Argentina, while the other penetrated the ancient territories of the Diaguita and Atacama people in Chilean lands, who had already developed basic road networks. | WIKI |
| Purposes of the road[edit] | WIKI |
| a view of the Inca road climbing a hillside at the Mosollaqta lake, Peru | WIKI |
| The Incas used the road system for a variety of reasons, from transportation for people who were traveling through the Empire to military and religious purposes. | WIKI |
| [15] The road system allowed for a fast movement of persons from one part of the Empire to the other: both armies and workers used the roads to move and the tambos to rest and be fed. | WIKI |
| According to Hyslop[10] the use of the Inca road system was reserved to authorities. | WIKI |
| Some local structures (called ranchillos) exist alongside the road which may allow to infer that also private trade traffic was present. | WIKI |
| [23] The Conquistadors used the Inca roads to approach the capital city of Cusco, but they used horses and ox carts, which were not usable on such a road, and soon most of the roads were abandoned. | WIKI |
| the Inca road bordering the Titicaca lake seen from the mirador of Chucuito, Peru. | WIKI |
| [26] Llamas have soft, padded hoofs which gives them good traction and negligible impact on the road surface. | WIKI |
| After conquering a territory and convincing the local lord to become an ally, the Inca distributed valuable gifts, but also took care of developing military-political strategy in extending the road system to cover the new dominated territories. | WIKI |
| The road system allowed for the displacement of imperial troops, to prepare for new conquests, to quell uprisings and rebellions, but it was also used for sharing with the dominated populations the surplus goods that the Inca produced and stored annually for the purpose of redistribution. | WIKI |
| To the south there are abundant remains, around Mendoza in Argentina and along the Maipo river in Chile, where the presence of forts marks the line of the road at the southernmost point of the Empire. | WIKI |
| The Inca coastal road at the Pachacamac Sanctuary | WIKI |
| The only way to reach the summits of the mountains for worship was by connecting the road system to high altitude paths in order to reach the sacred places. | WIKI |
| Some of them reached high altitudes above sea level, such as mount Chaxc3xb1i, which had a road that started at the base and went to the summit at an elevation of 5,949 metres (19,518xc2xa0ft). | WIKI |
| Such is the case of the sanctuary of Pachacamac through which the coastal road passed, just south of present days Lima. | WIKI |
| Many new sections of the road were built or upgraded substantially by the Incas: the one through Chile's Atacama desert and the one along the western margin of Lake Titicaca serve as two examples. | WIKI |
| [12] Their strategy involved modifying or constructing a road structure that would ensure the connection of the incorporated territory with Cusco and with other administrative centers, allowing the displacement of troops and officials. | WIKI |
| The foundation of cities and administrative centers connected by the road system ensured state control of the new incorporated ethnic groups. | WIKI |
| During the first years of the Colony, the Qhapaq xc3x91an suffered a stage of abandonment and destruction caused by the abrupt decrease of the number of natives due to illness and war[32][33] which reduced the population from more than 12 million people to about 1.1 million in 50 years[8] and destroyed the social structure that provided labor for road maintenance. | WIKI |
| Cieza de Leon in 1553 noted the abandonment of the road and stated that although in many places it is already broken down and undone, it shows the great thing that it was. | WIKI |
| [34] The admiration of the chroniclers was not enough to convince the Spanish ruler of the need to maintain and consolidate the road system rather than abandoning and destroying it. | WIKI |
| [24] Another important factor was the inadequacy of the road for horses and mules introduced by the conquerors, that became the new pack animals, substituting for the lightweight llamas. | WIKI |
| The twentieth century organization of roads along the Andes gave priority to the Pan-American highway along the coast, following roughly the traces of the coastal Inca road. | WIKI |
| This highway was then connected to westxe2x80x93east routes into the valleys while the north-south Inca road up the mountains was mostly reduced to local pedestrian transit. | WIKI |
| In 2014 the road system became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. | WIKI |
| The Incas built their road system by expanding and reinforcing several pre-existing smaller networks of roads, adapting and improving previous infrastructures, setting up a system of formal roads and providing a maintenance system that would protect the roads and facilitate the displacements and the exchange of people, goods and information. | WIKI |
| The outcome was a great road network of subcontinental dimensions, which, from Cusco, was directed in the four cardinal directions that marked the territorial division of Tawnatinsuyu, which allowed the Inca and his officers to have knowledge of everything that circulated on the roads, however far away they were. | WIKI |
| The Incas developed techniques to overcome the difficult territory of the Andes: on steep slopes they built stone steps, while in desert areas near the coast they built low walls to keep the sand from drifting over the road. | WIKI |
| Hyslop[10] noted that there was no road construction standard, because the roads were set in such varied environments and landscapes. | WIKI |
| Nevertheless, not all the roads were paved; in the Andean puna and in the coastal deserts the road was usually made using packed earth, sand, or simply covering grassland with soil or sand. | WIKI |
| [15] There is also evidence of paving with vegetable fibers such as in the road of Pampa Afuera in Casma (xc3x81ncash department, Peru). | WIKI |
| The width of the roadway varied between 1 to 4 metres (3.3 to 13.1xc2xa0ft),[2]:245 although some could be much wider, such as the 25 metres (82xc2xa0ft) road leading to Huxc3xa1nuco Pampa. | WIKI |
| The Cusco to Quito portion of the Road system, which was the most trafficked one, had a width always exceeding 4 metres (13xc2xa0ft) even in agricultural areas where the land had high value. | WIKI |
| [15] The maximum recorded width on the north coastal road is 35 metres (115xc2xa0ft), while the average width in the south coastal road is 8.5 metres (28xc2xa0ft). | WIKI |
| Stones and walls served to mark the width of the road and signal it. | WIKI |
| On the coast and in the mountains, the availability of construction materials such as stone and mud for preparing adobes allowed to build walls on both sides of the road, to isolate it from agricultural land so that the walkers and caravans traveled without affecting the crops. | WIKI |
| In the flatlands and in the deserts, these walls most probably prevented sand from covering the road. | WIKI |
| Stone rows were built with stones of similar sizes and shapes, placed next to each other and located on one or both edges of the road, arranged in a sort of curb. | WIKI |
| Although it is not strictly a construction element used to delimit the edges of the road, there are cases in which furrows delimit the road on both sides. | WIKI |
| These walls contained leveling fillings to form the platform of the road or to support the soil that could otherwise slide down the slope, as is generally seen in the transversal roads that lead to the coast from the mountains. | WIKI |
| Along other road sections, the drainage of rain water was carried out through an articulated system based on longitudinal channels and shorter drains, transverse to the axis of the road. | WIKI |
| Road marks[edit] | WIKI |
| At given distances the direction of the road was marked with stone piles (mojones in Spanish) a sort of milestones, generally placed on both sides of the road. | WIKI |
| An apacheta in the southern part of the Inca road system in the current province of Salta, Argentina | WIKI |
| Rocks of varying size at the road side can represent the shapes of the mountains or important glaciers of the region, as an expression of the sacralization of geography; they can be made up of one or more rocks. | WIKI |
| On rocky outcrops the road became narrower, adapting to the orography with frequent turns and retaining walls, but on particularly steep slopes flights of stairs or ramps were built or carved in the rock. | WIKI |
| There were multiple types of bridges used throughout the road system and they were sometimes built in pairs. | WIKI |
| A very special stone bridge was recently discovered in Bolivia consisting of a relatively small opening to allow the stream to flow and a quite imposing stone embankment filling the valley sides in order to allow the road to pass on top of it. | WIKI |
| To access the famous Apurxc3xadmac rope bridge it was necessary for the road to reach the narrowest section of the gorge: to this end, the road was cut along a natural fault into the steep rock of the valley and a tunnel was carved to facilitate the way. | WIKI |
| Garcilaso de la Vega[13] underlines the presence of infrastructure on the Inca road system where all across the Empire lodging posts for state officials and chasqui messengers were ubiquitous, well-spaced and well provisioned. | WIKI |
| The tambos were the most numerous and perhaps more important buildings in the operation of the road network. | WIKI |
| Qhapaq xc3x91an, Andean Road System is an extensive Inca communication, trade and defence network of roads and associated structures covering more than 30,000 kilometres. | UNESCO |
| These main routes are connected to several other road networks of lower hierarchy, which created linkages and cross-connections. | UNESCO |
| The road network was the outcome of a political project implemented by the Incas linking towns and centers of production and worship together under an economic, social and cultural programme in the service of the State. | UNESCO |
| The Qhapaq xc3x91an, Andean Road System is an extraordinary road network through one of the worldxe2x80x99s most extreme geographical terrains used over several centuries by caravans, travellers, messengers, armies and whole population groups amounting up to 40,000 people. | UNESCO |
| Towns, villages and rural areas were thus integrated into a single road grid. | UNESCO |
| The Qhapaq xc3x91an by its sheer scale and quality of the road, is a unique achievement of engineering skills in most varied geographical terrains, linking snow-capped mountain ranges of the Andes, at an altitude of more than 6,600 metres high, to the coast, running through hot rainforests, fertile valleys and absolute deserts. | UNESCO |
| It demonstrates mastery in engineering technology used to resolved myriad problems posed by the Andes variable landscape by means of variable road construction technologies, bridges, stairs, ditches and cobblestone pavings. | UNESCO |
| The road network was the life giving support to the Inca Empire integrated into the Andean landscape. | UNESCO |
| Criterion (iv): The Qhapaq xc3x91an, Andean Road System is an outstanding example of a type of technological ensemble which despite the most difficult geographical conditions created a continuous and functioning communication and trade system with exceptional technological and engineering skills in rural and remote settings. | UNESCO |
| Many of these elements were standardized by the Inca State, which allowed for the control of equal conditions along the road network. | UNESCO |
| The Andean Road System continues to serve its original functions of integration, communication, exchange and flow of goods and knowledge, and - despite the current modern trade and social changes - keeps its pertinence and importance throughout the centuries and its role as a cultural reference which contributes to reinforcing the identity within the Andean world. | UNESCO |
| The number of segments is adequate to communicate the key features of the heritage route, despite the fact that these are fragmented in individual site components, which represent the best preserved segments of the previously continuous road network. | UNESCO |
| These are predominantly driven by the local populations, who remain knowledgeable in traditional road management techniques and who are the key partners in maintaining the roadbed and associated features. | UNESCO |
| On the road sections, local management systems govern decision-making processes, often with a large degree of community involvement and these have retained highest degrees of authenticity as reuse of the historic materials remains more efficient than the introduction of new materials. | UNESCO |
| Associated intangible values and management practices remain very strong, especially in the most remote sections of the road network and contribute to the safeguarding of authentic management mechanisms. | UNESCO |
| The importance of preserving the actual road trace in areas that are being cultivated by the communities should be highlighted as part of the management agreements. | UNESCO |
| Some territories of the Qhapaq xc3x91an, Andean Road System are seismically active areas and especially the architectural structures seem to be endangered by earthquakes. | UNESCO |
| In addition to this multinational agreement management plans are intended to be developed at a regional level for each individual section of the road network. | UNESCO |