Where the gods dwell: an approach to the highest-altitude apus in Tawantinsuyu

Abstract

Mountains have been worshipped by various cultures throughout the world, but documented case studies of ritual climbing are scarce. In the Andes, the Inca made offerings to more than 200 mountains from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, 34 of which have an elevation of more than 6000 masl. This paper reviews Inca high mountain archaeology in these extreme summits, which hold the record for the highest-altitude archaeological evidence found throughout the world. The role of the Apus as tirakuna —living landscape beings with ritual and social agency— is explored through an analysis of material remains, ethnohistorical sources and recent approaches to Andean ontology. Major mountains like Llullaillaco, Aconcagua, and Mercedario are here studied incorporating technical, logistic and symbolic dimensions. This study presents an interpretation that reconstructs the planned, systematic and animate nature of these pre-Columbian practices, thus restating the very notion of mountaineering Andean-style.