Getting High in Peru to Sillustani, an Inca and pre-Inca site

Getting High in Peru to Sillustani, an Inca and pre-Inca site


     On our way back to Puno, we stopped at the Mirador, which I already put out on Facebook, and our final stop was at Sillustani, a pre-Inca site of a tribe (Colla) who allied with them and became part of their southeastern group. However, this site was occupied by another tribe before the Inca and the Colla, the Pukara who lived here from 800 BC to 500 AD.  The distinctive features of this site are the funerary towers, in which the Colla tribe buried its nobility. The tallest one is 40-feet in height. Most of these tombs though are much shorter (not a tower) and reminded me of the Nawamis in the Sinai Desert where the Neolithic peoples buried their dead. Both are constructed of stone and cylindrical with the opening facing east. The dead, along with some possessions, were placed on the floor with some former possessions. I had no problem convincing some of the students to enter the former tomb for pictures. Surprisingly, they remained in the tomb for at least 20 minutes. Nearby are the remains of a distinctive and circular Inca temple not completely excavated or recovered up to preserve it.  I moved on to take still other pictures and caught up with the tomb lovers as we descended to the bus.

 Emily's picture of me on site

 Lori's camera here with Lori and Bethany

 Inca Temple above and below

For me, the distinctive feature of the funerary towers was that the massive blocks were cut and shaped to compose a cylinder (think soup can). I pointed out to some of the students that some of the fallen blocks were now used to line our walkway. We did the same thing at Petra (Jordan) using some of the fallen temple and Byzantine church blocks to compose a walkway for tourists.

 Remember my mention of "soup can" with smooth sides.

 The openings faced east

 They stayed inside for a long time

 Can you spot the snake upper right block (3rd row down)?

 Circular snake incised on the stone

From here we traveled nonstop back to Arequipa after ascending to 14,000 feet before the descent to 8,000 feet to Arequipa and back to our homes by 10:30 pm.

This is my final posting of our trek to Lake Titicaca. 

In October we plan to journey to Machu Pichu, but I plan to visit other archaeological sites before then.