As remarkable as the stone cities, royal shelters and warehouses, and other administrative buildings, was the network of main roads connecting all this together. Any Inca ruler could easily go around all of his possessions from Ecuador to Chile, and, with the exception of a few cases when he had to get over large rivers, his porters did not need to leave the well-maintained roads.
The stone-paved roads of Tahuantinsuyu are often compared to the roads in the Roman Empire. Both of them were used to exercise strict control over various peoples who lived far from the capital. But the Romans did not have to constantly travel through dense jungle enveloped in vines, over mountains more than 20,000 feet high, to move over roaring rivers and mountain streams up to several hundred feet wide.
Two main arteries, connected by numerous secondary roads, ran through the territory of the whole country - one along the coast, and the other among the mountains. The coastal highway began from the palm-fringed Gulf of Guayaquil in Ecuador, stretched along the deserted coast, bypassing the capital of Chima - Chan-Chan, and went on, past the Pachacamac shrines, through the dry sands of Nazca, ending its journey after 3000 miles at the Chilean river Maule, to the south from the current Santiago. The mountain highway, called Kapak-nan, that is, the royal road, stretched even further: from the mountains north of Quito, it passed through all the battlefields of the times of the great Inca conquests, past the square in Cajamarca, where Atahualpa was captured, along the Mantaro River, where Huascar was captured and killed, and then through the river Apurimac reached Cuzco. From there the road turned southan arrow rushed into the mountains near Lake Titicaca, twisted, passing through the high mountain gorges and throats of Bolivia, reaching its end near Tucuman, in the territory of present-day Argentina. Both of these road systems, together with the adjoining mountain roads and branches that lead through the montana into the jungle of the lowlands, spanned over 15,000 miles.
Some sections of these highways were built centuries earlier by the Huari, and in the north by the Chimu and other peoples. But the Incas greatly expanded and improved them. Dams made of calcareous loam or stone blocks raised the road bed over the wetland, and culverts, culverts, provided the necessary drainage system. In some places, the surface of the canvas was covered with a waterproof mixture of corn leaves, pebbles and clay. The road was not paved in areas of hard rock on the coast; stone pillars pointed to the "shoulders", slopes on the ground, and sometimes low stone or clay walls were erected in some areas to prevent the penetration of sand on the canvas and so that caravans of lamas and royal couriers did not go astray. On the main highways, boundary pillars indicated the distance traveled.
The width of the roads depended on the ground: they reached 20 feet in the lowlands, in the desert and on the pune, and in mountain gorges their width was reduced to 3 feet. Wherever possible, roads were laid precisely in a straight line. The Inca engineers seemed to prefer to overcome rather than circumvent obstacles in their path. Since these roads were intended mainly for pedestrians and cautious, solid llamas, there were practically no restrictions associated with the steepness of one or another slope. This, of course, made it difficult to travel, especially in the mountains, where almost roller coasters, dizzying staircases with steps carved into the rock, were created to ease the fate of travelers. On the highway linking Machu Picchu with Vilkabamba, where the trail follows a steep slope,a 12-foot high stone fence was specially erected. Elsewhere, the road passes through a 15-foot-long tunnel carved into the rock, created by widening a natural crack. The arch of this shallow tunnel is high enough, a person can walk freely under it without bending, and inside there are steps in the floor for ease of descent.
The road builders had the hardest time when they combined all the water crossings in this region into a single system. While many rivers could be forded, some of them have such a fast current that such a step is life-threatening, even if the water level does not reach the knees. Over narrow rivers or small streams at ground level, it was possible to throw bridges from tree trunks or build a stone arch on consoles. Wide rivers with a slow flow required a different approach - for crossing them, pontoon bridges were created from highly stable reed boats, connected together and covered with a wooden roadbed. When the need arose to overcome a deep gorge with a river at the bottom in Montagna, the road builders often had to resort to "oroy" - something like a funicular,which was attached to a heavy rope of intertwined vines, other creepers, or of hard ichu grass, and such a rope was pulled from one side of the abyss to the other. The passenger, who took his place on a basket made of reeds suspended from a rope, got over to the other side with the help of people who dragged him through the gorge on a rope. But sometimes it happened that the basket was not at hand, and then, according to Kobo's father, the following happened: “The traveler was tightly tied hand and foot so that he would not fall down due to fright or loss of consciousness, and then hung him up with the help of a large wooden hook, after which they dragged him by the rope from one side to the other. "The passenger, who took his seat on a basket made of reeds suspended from a rope, got over to the other side with the help of people who dragged him through the gorge on a rope. But sometimes it happened that the basket was not at hand, and then, according to the story of Kobo's father, the following happened: “The traveler was tightly tied hand and foot so that he would not fall down due to fright or loss of consciousness, and then they hung him up from a rope with the help of a large wooden hook, after which they dragged him by the rope from one side to the other. "The passenger, who took his seat on a basket made of reeds suspended from a rope, got over to the other side with the help of people who dragged him through the gorge on a rope. But sometimes it happened that the basket was not at hand, and then, according to the story of Kobo's father, the following happened: “The traveler was tightly tied hand and foot so that he would not fall down due to fright or loss of consciousness, and then they hung him up from a rope with the help of a large wooden hook, after which they dragged him by the rope from one side to the other. "so that he would not fall down due to fright or loss of consciousness, and then they would hang him from a rope with a large wooden hook, and then drag him by the rope from one side to the other.so that he would not fall down due to fright or loss of consciousness, and then they would hang him from a rope with a large wooden hook, and then drag him by the rope from one side to the other.
While simple man-made gadgets such as baskets were a great help for individual travelers on secondary roads, the main thoroughfares required something more reliable and solid. In order to transport people and goods across mountain streams, the Incas built suspension bridges. They are widely regarded as outstanding achievements in their engineering skills. On each side of the stream, a stone pylon was erected, to which were attached strong, thick ropes, rolled from tough ichu grass, "as thick as a boy's torso," according to Kobo. Two ropes served as handrails, and the other three supported a roadbed made of tied tree branches. Such bridges sagged under their own weight and swayed threateningly in the wind. But they proved to be a reliable means of crossing and could withstand stretcher servants of nobles and even Spaniards on horseback. To ensure safety, local residents were ordered to change ropes at least once a year, and their duties included constant monitoring of the bridge and its timely repair. The most impressive of all such bridges was the one that hung over a canyon cut by the Apurimac River in the path of the main northern highway from Cusco. Its length from one edge of the abyss to the other was 220 feet; the stormy waters of the river boiled below, 118 feet from the traveler. The most impressive of all such bridges was the one that hung over a canyon cut by the Apurimac River in the path of the main northern highway from Cusco. Its length from one edge of the abyss to the other was 220 feet; the stormy waters of the river boiled below, 118 feet from the traveler. The most impressive of all such bridges was the one that hung over a canyon cut by the Apurimac River in the path of the main northern highway from Cusco. Its length from one edge of the abyss to the other was 220 feet; the stormy waters of the river boiled below, 118 feet from the traveler.
Despite all the dangers, for all the risks associated with traveling along such highways, their builders tried to make the journey of any traveler quick and pleasant. In some areas, they even planted fruit trees, irrigated with a sophisticated irrigation system so that travelers can enjoy the fresh, ripe fruit. They also built llama pens 15 to 30 miles from each tambo, "road station". The local responsible person at the station was charged with storing provisions: maize, lima beans, dry potatoes, jerky. Recent archaeological surveys have shown that the Incas built tambo on all roads in the empire, bringing the total to about 1000. Historical records of the colonial era say,that the Spaniards attempted to establish the efficient operation of all Tambo as an integral part of the existing road network, but they succeeded with much less success than the Incas.
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The road stations, like the Kolkas, convince the importance of stockpiling for the flawless functioning of the Inca empire. This would not have been possible had the Incas not created an efficient agricultural economic system. In order to meet the food needs of an ever-growing empire, they had to take a new approach to the use of land, and they successfully coped with this, creating terraces on the slopes of mountains, straightening rivers, filling or draining swamps, directing water to desert areas to provide them prosperity. In the empire, the terrain in which had a difficult terrain, mostly vertical in character, and the horizontal sections were arid steppes or completely lifeless desert, in very few areas it was easy to cultivate the land.
Agricultural terraces of the Incas can be seen everywhere, in every corner of the empire. They crawled along the slopes of the mountains that surrounded Cuzco, occupied large areas to the south in the Colca Valley, and were located on hundreds of steep, uneven slopes throughout the empire. About 2.5 million acres were cultivated in a way that made farming possible where it could not have been dreamed of before. (Today, about 6 million acres of land are regularly cultivated in Peru.) Legend has it that Pachacuti came up with the idea of building such terraces, although some of them predate the Incas and their dynasties. The Incas, however, perfected the design of such "andenes", as they were called, giving them an almost artistic form.
Typical andenes are 5-13 feet in height, width and length dependent on the slope. Some of them are 50 to 200 feet wide and up to 5,000 feet long at the base of the slope, but since they taper as they go up, they cannot be large at the top, only a few rows of corn or vegetable beds fit there. The walls of many of the terraces are made of limestone, and as Garcilaso tells us, "they rise slowly upward to support the weight of the earth they are filled with." Others, such as those near Cusco, were made from the same stone blocks that were used to build royal palaces.
Having built the retaining walls, the workers first filled the resulting space with a layer of cobblestones to provide the necessary drainage, then piled on top of the earth, which they carried on their own backs in baskets from the valleys. In some places, soil fertility was improved with the help of guano (bird droppings), which, if it was not nearby, was delivered from bird sanctuaries located on islands near the coast. To connect the terraces - some of them reached the height of a one-story house - the peasants made steps. Sometimes they stuck the slabs into the walls, the ends of which could serve as a kind of ladder.allowed water to flow from one level to another. Archaeologists theoretically suggest that the desolation of many ancient terraces was due to the depopulation of this vast region.
A. Varkin, L. Zdanovich, "Secrets of Disappeared Civilizations"