Description
Book SynopsisMemory Landscapes of the Inka Carved Outcrops investigates the Inka carved outcrops in the Andean highlands in the context of pan-Andean stone cults which predated the Inka and continue to be practiced in modified forms to the present day.
Trade ReviewThe precision-fitted masonry of Inca architecture has been celebrated for its beauty and advanced degree of engineering. However, the significance of carved outcrops in Inca religious ideology has received far less attention. Christie provides a welcome synthesis of information on modified stone while offering novel interpretations of the role of built environments in Inca imperial strategies. Her theoretical framework combines phenomenological approaches popular in British archaeology with practice and political landscapes perspectives. The latter recognizes that the interrelationships between peoples, places, and things set the parameters for political engagement and structured past power asymmetries. Christie contends that carving stone outcrops initially fostered private dialogues and reciprocal dependencies between animated landforms and imperial agents. However, the carved rock soon came to mark Inca sovereignty, territorial boundaries, and the direct intervention of the state. Christie’s detailed examination of modified outcrops in the Cusco region and elsewhere reveals their multiple meanings and agencies, and she traces continuity and change in stone cults from the Inca period to the present. She even argues that certain groups of boulders were gridded like khipus and functioned as counting devices (yupanas). Should appeal to scholars interested in political landscape and the semiotic affordance of stone in the Andean context and beyond. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *
Prof. Christie offers insightful analysis of Inca architectural and sculptural intervention in the Andean landscape. Her study is an important and lasting contribution to our understanding of the Inca and their world. -- Adam Herring, Southern Methodist University
Scholars have neglected the carved rock monuments of the later Inkas. These are permanent, meaningful records left at the behest of the rulers of this great empire without writing. Christie brings a fresh art history perspective to these carvings and offers unexpected insights into the functioning of Inka political agency -- Patricia J. Netherly, Vanderbilt University
An important contribution to Inca studies, both as an analysis of archaeological and ethnohistorical research and a substantive study of Inca culture and landscape. Jessica Christie contributes first-hand observations on Inca carved rocks and royal estates as focal points of Inca expressive culture and state ideology -- Maarten van de Guchte, Independent researcher, Atlantic Beach, Florida
Table of ContentsDedication List of Figures Introduction: Background, Purpose, Methodologies, and Findings, Source Materials Chapter 1: Formal and Structural Analysis of Inka Carved Rocks Carving Techniques Pre-Inka Roots of Stone Carving and Rock Art The Formal Elements of Inka Carved Rocks: Structural Features Associated with Carved Rocks Chapter 2: Carved Rocks on the Cusco Zeq’e Lines Groundwork Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks – Appearance, Experience, and Perception Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks – Essence, Imagination, and Stone Ideology Summary Chapter 3: The Birthplace of the Sun, Moon and the Inka Ancestors on the Island of the Sun and the Southern Basin of Lake Titicaca Groundwork Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks – Appearance, Experience, and Perception Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks –Essence, Imagination, and Stone Ideology Chapter 4: Inka Pacariqtambo – A Landscape of Power Relations through Time Groundwork Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks –Appearance, Essence, and Perception Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks –Essence, Imagination, and Stone Ideology Chapter 5: Machu Picchu Royal Estates Machu Picchu Groundwork Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks – Appearance, Experience, and Perception Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks – Essence, Imagination, and Stone Ideology Conclusions Chapter 6: Chinchero Groundwork Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks –Appearance, Experience, and Perception Inka Landscape and Carved Rocks –Essence, Imagination, and Stone Ideology Conclusions Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusions Major Results of this Investigation Relations with Stony Places Constructed in the Contemporary National and Global Worlds Conclusions Afterword References
