Cobo’s accounts seem to indicate that the ceques were conceived as
straight lines diverging radially from the Coricancha, the symbolic center of the world, and extending out into the cosmos. This way of organizing things spatially—lines radiating out from a center—seems to extend well back into pre-Inca times, evident, for example, in the lines on the desert at Nasca. It is also evident in the quipu—recording devices consisting of knotted strings—which can be laid out in a radial fashion, and has even survived to the present day in the layout of some of the more remote and traditional Andean villages.
It has been suggested that some of the Cusco ceques were astronomically aligned. Cobo’s account of various huacas includes hilltops where monuments were placed that marked the sun’s arrival at significant dates, such as the times to sow crops. This leaves open the question of where the hilltop huacas were to be viewed from, but archaeoastronomical investigations suggest that in some cases, at least, the answer was “along the ceques.” A related claim is that some of the ceques radiating out from the Coricancha hit the visible horizon at astronomically significant points such as the rising and setting of the sun at one of the solstices, something that is not surprising given that various chroniclers describe horizon observations of the sun from Cusco and describe pillars that were erected to mark these spots and to fa-
System
Anthropologist and historian Tom Zuidema has gone considerably further by suggesting that the ceque system was linked directly to an elaborate ritual calendar based neither upon solar observations nor upon lunar phase-cycle (synodic) months but upon sidereal months. A sidereal month, the time it takes for the moon to complete a circuit through the stars, is two days shorter than a synodic month, lasting 27.3 days. This may seem like a very esoteric concept, but it is a cycle that is particularly noticeable near the equator (where the celestial bodies rise and set almost vertically) by observing what stars the moon (whatever its phase) appears on a level with, for example, as it rises. This is done, for instance, by the Borana in east Africa.
Zuidema’s interpretation was triggered by the fact that the number of huacas recorded by Cobo in the vicinity of Cusco, which he took to be 328, is exactly equal to the number of days in twelve sidereal months. Each huaca, then, according to Zuidema, corresponded to a day in the calendar. This might well be dismissed as speculative nonsense, a mere numerical coincidence, except that Cobo tells us that acts of worship (such as sacrifices) took place at the various shrines in a sequential order, proceeding from one to the next, working gradually round the Cusco horizon. What of the remaining thirty-seven days in each seasonal year? These, according to Zuidema, represented the period of time when the fields lay fallow between last harvest and first planting. These were “dead days” when no ceremonies took place at any huaca, and corresponded to the time when the Pleiades were invisible, being too close to the sun. The various strands of evidence in support of Zuidema’s ritual calendar at Cusco are highly complex and hotly disputed, but the interpretation remains a highly intriguing one.
It has become evident, however, that we would be unwise to interpret the ceques too literally as a set of dead straight lines radiating out into the landscape from the center of Cusco. During the 1990s, archaeologist Brian Bauer conducted a field project around Cusco aiming to identify the actual locations of as many as possible of the original huacas. His conclusion was that the ceques were not straight at all, but actually zigzagged through the landscape. The huacas, according to Bauer, were defined by the innate power of places themselves, and they were subsequently grouped into ceques. They were certainly not placed on preconceived lines. In other words, the huacas defined the ceques, not the other way round.
It is possible, then, that some earlier work on ceque alignments has been misconceived. On the other hand, the non-straightness of the ceques does not detract from the fact that the whole landscape was evidently full of sacred and special places at which, for example, the sun was observed to rise or set on certain days of the year as seen from others. This is quite clear from the chroniclers’ accounts. We might conclude that Incaic perceptions of straightness do not accord with ours. But it may simply be that the ceques, although often straight over relatively small distances that could easily be sighted along, became more sinuous as they stretched out over the wider landscape. The ideal may not have been matched by the reality, but perhaps this was not a critical concern in practice.
See also:
Antizenith Passage of the Sun; Cobo, Bernabй (1582–1657); Lunar and Luni-Solar Calendars; Sacred Geographies; Solstitial Directions. Borana Calendar; Cusco Sun Pillars; Island of the Sun; Misminay; Nasca Lines and Figures; Quipu.
References and further reading
Aveni, Anthony F. Stairways to the Stars: Skywatching in Three Great Ancient Cultures, 147–176. New York: Wiley, 1997.
———. Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru, 124–135. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. [Published in the UK as Nasca: The Eighth Wonder of the World. London: British Museum Press, 2000.]
———. Skywatchers, 314–321. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Aveni, Anthony F., and Gary Urton, eds. Ethnoastronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics, 203–229. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1982.
Bauer, Brian. The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. Bauer, Brian, and David Dearborn. Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient