Qullqa

"Qolla" redirects here. For the people, see Qulla.
The Inca empire and the roads which traversed it
A complex of 27 Qullqas above Ollantaytambo, Peru

A qullqa (Quechua pronunciation: [ˈqʊʎˌqa] "deposit, storehouse";[1] (spelling variants: colca, collca, qolca, qollca) was a storage building found along roads and near the cities and political centers of the Inca Empire.[2] These were large stone buildings with roofs thatched with "ichu" grass, or what is known as Peruvian feathergrass (Jarava ichu). To a "prodigious [extent] unprecedented in the annals of world prehistory" the Incas stored food and other commodities which could be distributed to their armies, officials, conscripted laborers, and, in times of need, to the populace. The uncertainty of agriculture at the high altitudes which comprised most of the Inca Empire was among the factors which probably stimulated the construction of large numbers of qullqas.[3]

  1. ^ Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingüe Iskay simipi yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish dictionary)
  2. ^ Parsons, Timothy (2010). The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall. Oxford University Press. p. 137. ISBN 9780199746194.
  3. ^ Moseley, Michael E. (2001), The Incas and their Ancestors, New York: Thames and Hudson, p. 77