Cuenca Ecuador: City is preserving landmarks of its ancesetral beginnings

elcomercio.com / Giovany Estudillo / Cuenca is based on the Cañari cities of Guapondelig and Inca of Tumipampa . Its original layout evoked the figure of a cougar . This contribution was published in the book ‘Guapondelik / Tumipampa / Cuenca, Cultural Footprints and Territorial Transformation’. This study reflects the conception of the organization of the space that existed from the Cañari and Incas to the Spanish presence. One of the conclusions is that the present azuayan capital was always built according to the axis of astronomical orientation , says research author Alfredo Lozano . According to him, the research starts from an integral approach “because it can not be understood that the complex process of city construction is only done from archeology , anthropology or history, but also an integral process must be adopted and the form of To see the world and the things of the ancestral cultures “. The layout of the Andean cities , says Lozano, from very remote periods and in cities like Tiahuanaco , had a symbolic conception thought in function of theogony and cosmogony of the original towns . The latter refers to how the world is structured and the first to the divinities that originated in that world. Lozano says that it must be considered that the main constellation that is on the region is a pair of pumas , that served to trace the cities from Tiagunaco to the north.

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The researcher says that the figure of the puma can be reconstructed in the current layout of Cuenca because it was possible to preserve the alignments of the streets . In the city of today they maintain two zones with names that are related with this animal: Pumapungo and the Otorongo . It is presumed that this last place and in the neighborhoods bordering the Heart of Jesus and San Sebastián was the head and mouth of the puma, says Lozano. In the current archaeological complex of Pumapungo , which means the door of the puma , settled the Incas. This was the entrance to Tumipampa . “From the archaeological point of view, the idea of ​​the city has been reduced to this area when in fact it is not.” Lozano explains that the ancient city was between the neighborhood of Totoracocha , the Heart of Jesus , the river Tomebamba and the Avenue of the Americas . According to chroniclers such as Garzilaso de la Vega and Fernando de Montesinos , territorial organization was based on the organization of the sky, cardinal orientations that had a main geographic landmark such as hills, hills, lagoons or rivers, which served to define the boundaries . “These milestones determined where the populated center was. That is, they did not settle anywhere. There was an analysis of the natural environment, “says Lozano. In the case of Cuenca , these landmarks are the hills of Guagualzhumi , El Cajas, Turi (natural observatory) and Yanacuri , which is now urbanized. He further points out that if a record of the solstices and equinoxes is made it will be possible to identify that the rays of the Sun coincide with the axis of the main streets of Cuenca such as Sucre and Bolivar. Read Article