page_title: Qullqa
section_title: Products stored
hierarchical_section_title: Qullqa / Products stored
caption_attribution_description: English: Inca Warehouse (qullqa, collca)
context_page_description: A qullqa was a storage building found along roads and near the cities and political centers of the Inca Empire. 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.
context_section_description: The products stored in qullqas varied from region to region in the Inca Empire depending upon production in the local area.  At Wanuku Pampa in north central Peru, a major Inca administrative and storage area, 50 to 80 percent of the qullqas were used to store dried potatoes and other root crops.  Only 5 to 7 percent of qullqas were devoted to the storage of maize, probably because the high altitudes and cool climate limited the local production of maize. Root crops were layered with straw and baled for storage.  Maize was shelled and stored in large jars.
  Additional agriculture products stored in qullqas consisted of quinoa, beans, other vegetables, dried meat (Ch'arki or jerky, and seeds.  Non-agricultural goods 
  stored included textiles and clothing, wool, cotton, and feathers (used in clothing), tools and weapons and gold and silver vessels and other luxury items. Inventories of items stored were kept on quipus, the knotted strings the Incas used in lieu of a written language.
  The scope of the Inca's passion for storage in described by an early Spaniard who said of the qullqas near the Inca capital of Cuzco, "(there are) storehouses full of blankets, wool, weapons, metals and clothes -- and of everything that is grown and made in this realm....and there is a house in which are kept more than 100,000 dried birds, for from their feathers articles of clothing are made...There are shields, beams for supporting tents, knives, and other tools; sandals and armor for the people of war in such quantity that it is not possible to comprehend."
  The economy of the Inca Empire was to a large extent redistributive. "The Inca state seems to have financed itself primarily through direct managerial command of land, labor, and storage systems, rather than through a market exchange system."  Under the mit'a system, citizens were required to contribute labor to the Empire and the resultant production of food, textiles, and other goods were stored by the State to be distributed as needed.
  Agricultural products such as maize and quinoa might have had a storage life of one or two years and treated products such as freeze-dried potatoes and dried meat might have had a storage life of 2–4 years. However, early Spanish chroniclers said that some products were stored for up to 10 years.
caption: Qullqas (Inca Warehouses) by Guaman Poma
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