Qollqa: ventilated state storehouses
Colcas: almacenes estatales ventilados
- Date
- c. 1450 · confidence medium
- Place
- Huánuco Pampa, Huánuco, Peru
- Credited to
- Inca Empire
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Thousands of storehouses on wind-exposed slopes, with drained floors and ventilation, for preserving maize, chuño and textiles for years. They formed a network of reserves accounted for with quipus.
Studied by Morris and Levine; at Cotapachi (Bolivia) there were around 2,400.
What it led to
- state food security
- the logistics of the Inca army