Piquillacta

Piquillacta is the largest Wari site in the Cusco region and it looks nothing like Inca building. The Wari, whose empire ran from around 600 to 1000 AD with its capital near Ayacucho, laid the city out on a strict rectilinear grid - long straight streets, blocks of identical enclosures, walls that stood several storeys high built of rough fieldstone set in mud mortar and once plastered white. It covers around fifty hectares with hundreds of structures. What it was for is debated: an administrative centre, a garrison, a storage and redistribution hub for a colony far from the Wari heartland. It seems to have been deliberately abandoned, with entrances sealed, around the time the Wari system collapsed. The scale and the uniformity are the striking things, and because most visitors are on their way to somewhere else it is usually quiet.

History

The name means "flea place" in Quechua. The Wari site was occupied from about 550 to 1100 AD and was not complete when it was abandoned; Luis Valcárcel first studied it in 1927, Emilio Harth-Terre published plans in 1959, and the Peruvian Ministry of Culture excavated around its central plaza in 2017-2018 (Wikipedia, Pikillaqta).

What to look for

• The grid - long straight streets and repeated rectangular blocks.
• The walls - fieldstone in mud mortar, standing high, once plastered white.
• The scale - around fifty hectares of planned Wari city.
• The abandonment - entrances found sealed when the site was left.

When to go

April to October. One to two hours, usually combined with Tipón and Rumicolca on the Urcos road. Rarely crowded.

Before you go

The ruins are plain rough stone, and visitors used to Inca masonry often find them dull. Very exposed, with no shade and strong sun at 3,250 metres. Signage is limited and the plan is hard to read at ground level.

Nearby

Rumicolca is immediately south; Tipón and Cusco are north-west.

Key facts