Inca ushnus: landscape, site and symbol in the Andes

本项目考察印加帝国（约公元1400 - 1532年）如何应对侵占和改造安第斯地貌的挑战，以增强其生产能力和政治力量，从而创建美洲最大的本土国家。为了解决安第斯山脉的景观、遗址和象征之间的关系，我们提出了一项跨学科的研究，研究一种被称为乌什努的印加建筑。Ushnu是一个盖丘亚语的术语，包含了印加国王和印加人特权使用的受限的，神圣的空间的概念。这个概念的材料表现形式从位于区域行政中心中心广场的引人注目的石面阶梯式金字塔和平台，到位于景观中显眼可见点的小型建筑。当印加人（或作为他代表的省领主）和他的随从站在这个平台上时，他肯定了印加国家的至高无上和统治的神圣权威。这些平台被用作公共舞台，在农业日历中举行仪式，宣布种植和收获的时间，使用诸如qeros（由金属，陶器和木材制成的用于敬酒和饮酒的饮用容器）等著名物品。它们也被用于再分配仪式，作为公众慷慨的表现，将人民与统治者联系在一起，偶尔也会提供一套微型陶器和金属雕像。因此，乌什努被赋予了深刻的象征意义，并被用作管理日常生活的实用工具，以维护印加对臣民和资源的统治。作为印加政治和神圣地理的核心元素，它们在景观中的分布为理解印加人在维护控制和将新领土纳入其快速扩张的帝国方面是多么地有效提供了关键。我们的目标是了解它们的实际和象征性的原则，它们在景观中的放置和功能的基本原理，以及它们与相关的人工制品组合在一起发生的活动。这项研究将集中在Vilcashuaman周围的腹地，它曾经位于秘鲁中央高地印加帝国的地理中心。在这里，印加皇家道路（capac nan）系统中最令人印象深刻和保存最完好的ushnus之一标志着连接首都库斯科与太平洋海岸的主要东西道路和连接不断扩大的北部边境与印加中心地带的南北高速公路之间的纽带。在与秘鲁合作者合作开展的为期三年的项目（2007年1月至2009年12月）中，我们将对沿两条高速公路和邻近腹地选定的ushnus进行调查、制图、土壤分析和挖掘。我们将评估用地位置与用地集水区资源的关系，如农业潜力、泉水、灌溉，以及其他文化特征，包括主干道、中转站、储存设施以及辅助道路和路径。民族志工作与当地社区和民族历史研究将提供关键的见解，在ushnus是如何使用和理解的方式。我们将特别关注乌什努人的观景棚和场地间的可见性，以揭示印加人对传统西方规则之外的景观的认知和关系。实地考察和实验室分析将与对大英博物馆安第斯藏品的研究同时进行，并将共同为将印加藏品置于背景和理解的创新方式做出贡献，最终建立一个专门展示安第斯文明和历史的新画廊

This project examines how the Inca Empire (c. AD 1400 - 1532) met the challenge of appropriating and modifying the Andean landscape to enhance its productive capacity and political power so as to create the largest native state in the Americas. To address the relationship between landscape, site and symbol in the Andes we propose a trans-disciplinary study of a specific kind of Inca architectural construction known as the ushnu. Ushnu is a Quechua term that encompasses the idea of a restricted, sanctified space reserved for use by the Inca king and Incas-by-privilege. This concept found material expression in a hierarchy of forms ranging from conspicuous, stone-faced stepped pyramids and platforms located in the central plazas of regional administrative centres, to smaller constructions placed at prominent visible points in the landscape. When the Inca (or a provincial lord as his representative) stood on this platform with his retinue, he affirmed the supremacy of the Inca state and its divine authority to rule. The platforms were used as public stages to conduct ceremonies announcing the timing of planting and harvest within the agricultural calendar using prestigious objects such as qeros (drinking vessels made in metal, pottery and wood for toasting and libations). They were also used for redistributive rituals enacted as shows of public generosity to bind the people to their rulers and occasionally to make offerings of sets of miniature pottery vessels and metal figurines. Ushnus were therefore invested with profound symbolic significance and served as pragmatic instruments of administrative control to regulate daily life and assert Inca supremacy over subject populations and resources. As focal elements in Inca political and sacred geography their distribution in the landscape offers a key to understanding how extraordinarily effective the Incas were in asserting control and incorporating new territories into their rapidly expanding empire.Our goal is to understand the practical and symbolic principles underlying their construction, the rationale for their placement and function within the landscape, the activities that took place on them together with their associated artifact assemblages. The study will focus on the hinterland surrounding Vilcashuaman that once lay at the geographical centre of the Inca Empire in the Peruvian Central Highlands. Here, one of the most impressive and best preserved ushnus on the system of Inca Royal Roads (capac nan) marked the nexus between the main East-West road connecting the capital Cusco with the Pacific coast, and the great South-North highway linking the expanding northern frontier with the Inca heartland. In a 3 year programme (Jan 2007 - Dec 2009) to be undertaken in partnership with Peruvian collaborators, we will undertake survey, mapping, soil analysis and excavation of selected ushnus along two stretches of the highway and in the adjacent hinterland. We will assess site locations in relation to site catchment resources such agricultural potential, springs, irrigation, and also to other cultural features including the main arterial highway and tambos (way stations) and storage facilities as well as ancillary roads and paths. Ethnographic work with local communities and ethno-historical research will provide key insights into the ways in which ushnus were and are used and understood. We will be paying particular attention to ushnu view-sheds and inter-site visibility in order to reveal aspects of Inca cognition and relationship to the landscape that lie outside conventional western rules. The fieldwork and laboratory analysis will proceed in parallel with a study of the British Museum's Andean collections and together will contribute to innovative ways to contextualizing and understanding the Inca collections, culminating in a new gallery devoted to Andean civilization an