Inca pyramid

Ushno or Pirámide Inca, in Vilcashuamán, Ayacucho, Peru.

The oldest Inca buildings were made of adobe and other materials. Permanent or monumental structures built in stone or (unfired brick) developed mainly in Mesoamerica and in the central Andean zone.

Pre-Columbian construction techniques were rudimentary. Most of the structures were built with the system of column and lintel or horizontal beams without arches, although the Chavín culture of Peru and the Maya of Mesoamerica used the false arch or protruding stone vault, which consists of placing a stone on another to get an arch shape. They used more stone tools than metal, and both transport and the construction of buildings such as pyramids, palaces, tombs and temples on stepped bases, were carried out manually without the help of any type of machinery.

The pre-Columbian pyramid was considered something different from its Egyptian equivalent, since it was not built for funerary purposes but as the residence of a deity. However, recent excavations repeatedly confirm that tombs used to be incorporated into the pyramids. The pictograms of the codices (see Paleography) allow us to suppose that the pyramids had great civic and cultural importance. The Aztec symbol to represent the conquest was a burning pyramid in which the calli, or house of the god (the main temple), had been toppled by the conquistador. To make them even more monumental and thus increase the prestige of the ruler, many of the Mesoamerican pyramids were periodically rebuilt on an already existing structure, although this practice was related to each change of era and was commemorated by building a new pyramid on top of the previous ones.

In 2007, archaeologist Tom Dillehay described the existence in the area of Lumaco, Chile, of 300 conical Mapuche burial mounds, which he called cuel. In some cases they exceed 40 meters in height. These buildings, according to the author, would be the result of the Inca influence on said ethnic group. They would have been built between the XIV century and the Spanish conquest.