Inka Road Remains a Monumental Achievement in Engineering After 500 Years of Continuous Use

WASHINGTON, June 23, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian will present "The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire," the first major bilingual exhibition on the South American civilization, June 26, 2015 through June 1, 2018. It will explore why the construction of the Inka Road, more than 500 years ago, stands as one of the greatest engineering feats—constructed without the use of metal or iron, the wheel or stock animals to pull heavy loads. For the full press release and high resolution images, visit, http://www.nmai.si.edu/press/kits/inka-road.

The museum uses the Inka spelling rather than the more common Inca because it is consistent with the usage of the original traditional South American language of Quechua and in line with the museum's policy on Native-language preservation.

The paved road is more than 24,000 miles in length, runs north to south crossing through Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The Inka Road engaged impressive engineering strategies in response to the challenges presented by the rugged Andes mountains. This landscape ranges from coastal desert to high plateau and uneven cordillera (a system of mountain ranges) separated by valleys characterized by biodiversity and many unique ecosystems.   

Through images, maps, models and 140 objects, including a ceramic Chavín stirrup spout bottle (the oldest item in the exhibition, ca. 800–100 B.C.), impressive gold ornaments, necklaces made from shells from the Lambayeque region, stone carvings, silver pendants and figurines and various textiles made from camelid hair, the items illustrate important concepts in Andean cosmology, the principles of duality, reciprocity and integration of infrastructure and spirituality.  

The Inka Empire, the final period of autonomy and pure indigenous tradition in South American history, began in the 14th century and flourished until the Spanish invasion in 1532. Throughout its 100 years of construction and use, the extensive road allowed the Inka to move thousands of soldiers, workers and llama caravans quickly throughout the regions. After the Spanish invasion, the road lost its original symbolism and its political meaning, but it never lost its significance as a symbol and sacred space to indigenous people in the region. Descendants of the Inka are alive today, and millions of people still speak the traditional languages of Quechua and Aymara. The Inka Empire ultimately transformed the world through the dissemination of important crops, minerals and medicines. The Inka Road functioned as a complex network and major axis for communication, transportation, expansion, administration and political control of vast and varied territories of the Inka Empire.

Exhibition curators Ramiro Matos (Quechua) and José Barreiro (Taíno) have spent the past six years researching, traveling and documenting the Inka Road in preparation for this exhibition.

"The Inka are one of the primary examples of the achievements of the indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere," said Kevin Gover (Pawnee), director of the museum. "Their knowledge, their understanding of their environment, their agriculture and, of course, their engineering all remain infinitely interesting and instructive particularly in a world that is grappling with some quite near existential challenges of sustainability. There is knowledge to be gained from the examination of these indigenous cultures not simply for the sake of gathering knowledge, but for its application in our contemporary lives."

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a book, The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire, which is edited by Matos and Barreiro and features 23 essays on four main themes: the Andean landscape and the city of Cusco; Inka engineering; the four regional divisions of the empire and the ways the Inka Road system linked them; and the "living" road from the colonial era to the present. Beautifully designed and featuring more than 175 full-color illustrations, the book offers a fascinating view of an enduring symbol of South American peoples' strength and adaptability.

The Inka Road project is organized by the National Museum of the American Indian and is made possible by federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center, and internal Smithsonian Institution funds from the Consortium for Valuing World Cultures. Support for the exhibition is provided by the National Council of the National Museum of the American Indian and the ESA Foundation.

For more information, visit www.AmericanIndian.si.edu. Follow the museum's Twitter feed, @SmithsonianNMAI, and use the hashtags #InkaRoad or #Peru2SI.

SOURCE Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

Related Links

http://www.americanindian.si.edu/