Coricancha
Interesting facts
- According to experiments by the folklorist Augusto León Barandiarán, three holes in one temple block sound the musical notes D, A and G when struck.
- According to the chroniclers, the Inca emperor sat in the temple's sun room beside the mummies of his ancestors, which were adorned with gold masks and sceptres.
- Chroniclers describe the emperor focusing the sun's rays with a concave mirror to light the sacrificial fire during the Inti Raymi festival.
- Spanish accounts describe a courtyard garden of life-size maize plants, birds and vicuñas made of gold and silver.
- Before it was called the golden enclosure, the temple was known as Intikancha or Intiwasi, the enclosure or house of the Sun.
- According to Inca myth, the founder Manco Cápac chose this spot, at the meeting of two rivers, for the temple that marked the foundation of Cusco.
- Inca astronomers saw a llama in the dark clouds of the Milky Way whose eyes are the bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri.
- The Inca builders rejected any block with even a slight flaw, so the precision of the walls itself announced the state's power to command labour.
- The Inca walls withstood major earthquakes in 1650, 1749 and 1950, while the Spanish structures built on top of them were badly damaged each time.
- The mamakuna who served the temple spent much of their time weaving and dyeing fine cloth and brewing chicha for religious ceremonies.
Why it is worth it
At Coricancha the Inca and the Spanish worlds are literally built one on top of the other. The lower walls are Inca ashlar — grey andesite and other hard stone cut into blocks that fit so tightly no mortar was needed — and above and around them rise the church and convent of Santo Domingo. The most striking surviving piece is a curved retaining wall, nearly sixty metres long, that bends through more than ninety degrees in a single smooth arc.
The Quechua name Quri Kancha means "golden enclosure". It was the chief temple of the Inca state, dedicated above all to Inti, the sun god, though chambers inside also honoured the Moon, thunder and other celestial powers. According to the chroniclers, the emperor Pachacuti rebuilt and enriched it, and its walls were sheathed in sheets of gold while the courtyard held golden figures. The high priest lived here and the temple was served by cloistered women, the mamakuna. The site also played a role in Inca astronomy, used to follow the solstices and the dark constellations of the Milky Way. After the Spanish arrived in 1533, most of the gold was stripped and gathered for Atahualpa's ransom.
The Dominicans took over the site and built their convent on the Inca foundations. When an earthquake in 1650 wrecked the first Spanish buildings, the convent was rebuilt in the 17th century; another severe earthquake in 1950 again damaged the colonial structures while the Inca walls held, and the work that followed left more of the original masonry exposed than before. Coricancha lies in the historic centre of Cusco, the former Inca capital, at about 3,400 metres above sea level; the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1983.
Getting there
Coricancha stands in the centre of Cusco, about 1 km from the district centre of Santiago. The nearest airport is Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport (CUZ), about 4.4 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Sacsayhuamán 1.5 km · archaeological-site
- Pisac Archeological Park 18.9 km · archaeological-site
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Coricancha was the most important temple in the Inca Empire, and was described by early Spanish colonialists. It is located in Cusco, Peru, which was the capital of the empire.
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