Product Code Database
A qullqa ( "deposit, storehouse";Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingüe Iskay simipi yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish dictionary) (spelling variants: colca, collca, qolca, qollca) was a storage building found along roads and near the cities and political centers of the Inca Empire. These were large stone buildings with roofs thatched with "ichu" grass, or what is known as Peruvian feathergrass ( Jarava ichu). 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.Moseley, Michael E. (2001), The Incas and their Ancestors, New York: Thames and Hudson, p. 77
Storage facilities were also necessary because the Incas did not have navigable rivers, wheeled vehicles, or large draft animals, although were capable of moving large amounts of bulky commodities. Nor did the Incas have a well-developed monetary, financial, or trading system to facilitate commerce. Thus, food and other items were stored near where they were produced and distributed by the State when necessary.D'Altroy, Terence N, (2003), The Incas, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, p. 280
The response of the Incas to the challenges of their environment and technology was a huge and well-organized system of qullqas to collect and store food and other items during good harvest years for distribution when needed. Large numbers of qullqas were constructed near every major governmental center, state-owned farm, temple, and royal estate. Qullqas were built at every "tambo", which were inns located a day's march, about , from each other along many of the of royal highways.McEwan, Gordon R. (2006), The Incas: New Perspectives, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, pp. 115, 119, 121
The qullqas were primarily used to supply Inca officials and armies on the move as they relied on the qullqas for food rather than foraging—to the deprivation of the agricultural population—which was the common means by which armies around the world supplied their needs until the modern era. Another use for the stored items, especially food, was for the ceremonial feasts that were an important part of the relationship between the rulers and their subjects. Food was also distributed to the general populace in cases of crop failures or shortages of food.D'Altroy (2003), p. 280
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.McEwan, pp. 122-123
The scope of the Inca's commitment for storage is described by Pedro Sánchez de la Hoz the first Spanish chronicler to visit the Inca capital of Cuzco who said that in the city «there 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 house roofs, knives, and other tools; sandals and armor for the people of war in such quantity that it is not possible to comprehend.»Sánchez de la Hoz, Pedro (1968 1534). Relación para Su Majestad de lo sucedido en la conquista y pacificación de estas provincias de la Nueva Castilla... - Chapter XVII - In: Los Cronistas de la Conquista. Notas y concordancias de Horacio Urteaga - Biblioteca Peruana, Primera Serie, Tomo II (pp. 277-343). Editores Técnicos Asociados - Lima PeruD'Altroy (2003), p. 281
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."La Lone, Mary B and La Lone, Darrell E. (1987), "The Inka State in the Southern Highlands: State Administrative and Production Enclaves," Ethnohistory, Vol. 34, No. 1, p. 48 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.Morris and Thompson, p. 356. While this is true for the highland areas of the Inca Empire, coastal areas of the Empire had well developed trading systems, notably the Chincha culture which traded along a thousand miles of coast using sea-going rafts.
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.D'Altroy (2003), p. 283
The interior diameter of an average small qullqa was ; larger qullqas have a diameter of around . These smaller qullqa could have held of maize, and larger qullqa could have held about of maize.
Most of the remains of qullqas near Cuzco have disappeared due to urban expansion and development over the centuries. The largest remaining number of qullqas is in the Mantaro Valley between the present days cities of Huancayo and Jauja, Peru. This broad valley, some long contains about of cultivatable lands ranging in elevation from to , the highest elevation at which cultivation was possible in this area. Land Use in the Andes: Ecology and Agriculture in the Madero Valley of Peru, International Potato Center, 1979, p. 125
The Mantaro Valley was one of the largest and most fertile high-altitude areas of the Inca Empire. 2,573 qullqas have been found in the valley by archaeologists. Half of them were placed in the center of this grain-producing area, another half scattered among 48 compounds along the course of the river. In total, the qullqas of the Mantaro Valley had a storage area of 170,000 square meters, possibly the largest storage facilities in the Inca Empire and in pre-Columbian America.D'Altroy (2003), p. 281 Illustrating the quantity of stored items, these qullqas supplied and equipped an army of 35,000 soldiers during the Spanish conquest of the 1530s.Parsons, p. 139
Cochabamba in present day Bolivia, at a relatively low elevation of was developed as a state farm by the Incas for maize production. On the hills to the south of the growing area above Lake Cotapachi were 2,400 qullqas, each cone shaped, about in height and diameter and clustered in parallel lines in an area of .D'Altroy (2003), p. 281; "Collcas Incaicas of Cotapachi", http://www.bolivia-online.net/en/cochabamba/134/collcas-incaicas-of-cotopachi, accessed 11 Dec 2016 Some of the maize produced in Cochabamba was transported by Llama caravan to the regional center of Paria, west of Cochabamba, and hence on to Cuzco. One thousand qullqas have been discovered at Paria.La Lone, pp. 50-51; Faldon, Juan, Parssinen, Martti, Kesseli Risto, and Faldin, Juan (2010), "Paria, the Southern Inka Capital Rediscovered," Chungara: Revista de Antropologia Chilena, Vol. 42, No. 1, p. 238. Downloaded from JSTOR.
The Campo de Pucara in Argentina, southwest of the city of Salta, had 1,717 qullqas of about the same size and apparently the same function as the qullqas at Cochabamba.LeVine, Terry Y. (1992), Inca Storage Systems, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 22-23 All other provincial centers of the Empire had large numbers of qullqas built row after row on nearby hills.D'Altroy (2003), p.124
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