Qorikancha

Present

Qorikancha is administered by the Dominican friars of Cusco as the convent and church of Santo Domingo. The complex combines the surviving Inca stone walls and chambers with the colonial church and cloister built over and around them. A site museum displays objects from the Inca temple and from the colonial period. The church serves the Catholic community of the city. On 24 June, the day of Inti Raymi, the reconstructed festival of the sun begins in the grounds of Qorikancha with the greeting of the sun by the performer who represents the Inca ruler, before the procession moves to the main square and to Sacsayhuaman above the city. The Peruvian Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Cusco are responsible for the conservation of the historic center in which the site lies.

Religious Significance

Indigenous (from the 15th century CE)

Qorikancha was the central temple of the religion of the Inca state. The Inca regarded the sun, Inti, as their principal deity and the ancestor of their ruling dynasty, and this temple was dedicated to him. Chambers within the enclosure were devoted to the moon, the stars, thunder, and the rainbow. Andean tradition holds that from this temple ran imaginary lines to hundreds of shrines across the Cusco valley, which marked the calendar of rituals through the year. The festival of the sun at the June solstice, Inti Raymi, was the greatest festival of the Inca year. The reconstruction of Inti Raymi staged in Cusco every 24 June since 1944 opens at Qorikancha in acknowledgment of that role. Andean communities in the region keep ceremonies for the sun and for Pachamama, the earth regarded as a living mother, at the solstice.

Christianity (from the 16th century CE)

Catholics worship in the church of Santo Domingo, which the Dominican order built over the temple after the Spanish conquest. The Dominican friars have held the site since the 1530s.

History & Structure

Qorikancha ("Golden Enclosure") was rebuilt in the 15th century under the ruler Pachacuti, who remodeled Cusco as the capital of the Inca Empire. The name Qorikancha means golden enclosure in Quechua. Its walls were built of rectangular blocks of andesite fitted without mortar and polished smooth, the finest masonry of the Inca, and were sheathed in sheets of gold. Its courtyard held a garden of plants, animals, and figures made of gold and silver. Spanish forces entered Cusco in the 1530s and stripped the temple of its gold. The Dominican order received the site and built the church and convent of Santo Domingo on and around the Inca walls. The complex was damaged by earthquakes in 1650 and 1950; the Inca walls withstood both, and the 1950 earthquake exposed parts of the temple that had been hidden by colonial construction. Today a visitor sees a baroque church and a cloister raised on a curved Inca wall of dark stone, with Inca chambers and trapezoidal doorways preserved inside the cloister. Qorikancha is located in the historic center of Cusco, two blocks from the main square, and is part of the City of Cuzco, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1983.