LANDSCAPE IMPLICATIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF FUNERARY STRUCTURES

Approaches from Tantanamarka Site in P'isaq, Southern Peru

[Implicancias del paisaje en la construcción de estructuras funerarias. Aproximaciones desde el sitio de Tantanamarka, P’isaq, Cusco. 2010]

Adan CHOQQUE ARCE & Alexander J. SICOS ANCCOUniversidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco

[Unpublished document]

Abstract

To understand the man's past it is vital the understanding of places, delving into the connections established between the human being and the space in which it operates, being observed traces of a complex cultural and social plot, showing the different ways of human thinking and the relationships with their environment, turned in a humanized space: landscape.

The landscape, though it had become a focus for archaeology, has been treated for a long time from an economic perspective, considered as a space from where resources have been obtained to survive. It has been understood as a simple passive scenario and static scene of human alterations. Nevertheless, for us the landscape has double dimension: material or objective and conceptual or perceived reality, to the extent that it is being treated as a built environment: cognitive, symbolic, and (then) physically, constituting an active agent of communication as a result of constant and dynamic interaction between man and his environment.

In this way, we speak about the organization of the funerary space that meets standards to defined schemas of an specific cultural period, within which converged aesthetic, functional and symbolic factors, by taking advantage of the special physical characteristics such as natural rock cavities and / or modifying others, which is referred as the landscape of the death or funerary landscape, and it is known as the "locus of memory".

With respect to the landscape as an active agent of communication, since immemorial times the Andean landscape has been alive, personified, and a form of this it is that the burial site may be considered as a place of ancient mythological origin that the community has a concept of returning of “the dead" and buried to the birthplace which is assimilated to a mountain. Additionally, it has an importance: most of the funerary structures are oriented towards the East or a sacred mountain. So, the landscape is understood as a dynamic and complex synthesis, while it results from the interaction of socio-cultural and natural, material and conceptual elements, the past and the present:

1. The societies located throughout the Central Andes Mountain range have shared similar characteristic in terms of the distribution of the funerary structures located in rocky slopes and headlands.

2. The funerary landscape of P'isaq became a place where the living ones cohabited with the dead ones, displaying a well-defined territorial ordering, both by natural elements such as engineering works (walls).

3. It was believed that the person at death did not die, but went to another dimension of life, returning to the place he had been born (paqarina) like their ancestors.

4. Their funerary constructions were located mostly in hillsides, due to their beliefs and “cosmovision”, according to which to the being buried there the deceased could guard and ensure their offspring (ayllu) and the community of the living ones would be close to their ancestors.

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