page_title: Inca road system
section_title: Religious
hierarchical_section_title: Inca road system / Purposes of the road / Religious
caption_attribution_description: English: Archaeological area of the Pachacamac Sancturay: the main north-south road which is part of the Inka coastal road
context_page_description: The Inca road system was the most extensive and advanced transportation system in pre-Columbian South America. It was at least 40,000 kilometres long. The construction of the roads required a large expenditure of time and effort.
  The network was composed of formal roads carefully planned, engineered, built, marked and maintained; paved where necessary, with stairways to gain elevation, bridges and accessory constructions such as retaining walls, and water drainage system. It was based on two north-south roads: one along the coast and the second and most important inland and up the mountains, both with numerous branches.
  It can be directly compared with the road network built during the Roman Empire, although the Inka road system was built one thousand years later.
  The road system allowed for the transfer of information, goods, soldiers and persons, without the use of wheels, within the Tawantinsuyu or Inka Empire throughout a territory with an extension was almost 2,000,000 km² and inhabited by about 12 million people.
context_section_description: The high altitude shrines were directly related to the cult of Nature and specifically to the mountains, typical of the Inca society, which the Incas formalized by the construction of religious structures on the mountain peaks. Mountains are the apus, or deities, in the universe of Andean beliefs that are still holding today; they have a spiritual connotation linked to the future of Nature and human existence. This is why the Incas held many rituals, including the sacrifice of children, goods, and llamas, at the mountain tops, but not all mountains had the same religious connotation nor in all of them sanctuaries were built. The only way to reach the summits of the mountains for worship was by connecting the road system to high altitude paths in order to reach the sacred places. They were ritual roads that culminated in the peaks, at the point of contact between the earthly and the sacred space. Some of them reached high altitudes above sea level, such as mount Chañi, which had a road that started at the base and went to the summit at an elevation of 5,949 metres (19,518 ft).
  In addition to high altitude shrines, there were also many holy shrines or religious sites, called wak’a, that were a part of the Zeq’e system along and near the roads, especially around the capital city, Cusco. These shrines were either natural or modified features of the landscape, as well as buildings, where the Inka would visit for worship.
  Some important places of worship were directly connected by the main Inka roads. Such is the case of the sanctuary of Pachacamac through which the coastal road passed, just south of present days Lima.
caption: The Inka coastal road at the Pachacamac Sanctuary
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