What must it be saved in Kuélap?

At least during three years, touristic guides and businesspersons warned there would be a collapse.

 

 

LÚYA, Peru – In 1998, Peruvian Government declared the archaeological complex of Kuélap as cultural patrimony. The touristic reviews describe it like an architectural jewel built by the ancient Chachapoya people, a little confederation of communities settled down in the steepest, wildest lands between Marañón River to the west and Huallaga River to the east. In Peru dimensions, it’s about the Upper Jungle or Rupa-Rupa eco-region – the mountain rain forest, actually, already in Amazon Basin.

 

The chahchapoya or shacshapooyo (fog’s people, in English) flourished between 900 and 1470 AD extending between the south of Amazonas Department, all the western half of san Martín Department, and the eastern side of La Libertad Department. They were contemporary of the Incas what conquered them during the reign of Tupac Inca Yupanqi who started the expansion of the empire such as the north as actual Ecuador and Colombia.

 

Chachapoya is the Quechuan name. Like many towns in Peruvian Northern Andes, it’s ignored how they named themselves, although some Pre-Inca place names survive. The chroniclers write three curious facts: first, they seemed to be peaceful-mood people, second, their face was whiter rather than tanned, third, the Inca occupation was a set of intrigues and conspiracies for the power.

 

 

Another natural watchtower

Kuélap was built in big-dimension stons on the ridge of Barreta Mount (approximately 9843 feet altitude), in Tingo District. The archeologists affirm that it was taken advantage of a little plateau for making the construction that might begin in 11^th century AD when the Chachapoyas were already consolidated, although there are suggestions that the construction could start in 8^th century AD.

 

Because its location, its access system, and its space ordering, Kuélap might have a ddefensive purpose. In fact, the highest part is dominated by a keep ffrom what it’s possible to look at almost all Utcubamba River Valley, one of Marañón tributaries, that at the same time it’s tributary of Amazon River. However, the rest of its 0.77 sq mi also have administrative, religious, and residential buildings as well as a sophisticated water supply system, maybe from rains.

 

It’s belief the place could be occupied until 1570, when the Spaniars already have colonized actual Peru, matching the first El Niño event with an existent  historic record. On January 31st, 1843, Chachapoyas Judge Juan Crisóstomo Nieto was its first explorer with locals who already knew the rests.

 

Its first surveys began in 1930 by Louis Langlois based upon references by adolf Bandelier, and in a comprehensive way by the Peruvian Federico Kauffman Doig whom is considered as the major scholar of Chachapoya Culture.

 

 

The archaeological jewel of Amazonas

Kuélap (cold place, possibly in English) is not the only evidence that people left along Utcubamba River, that seems to have been its main development axis. However, it seems to be the best conserved or the most monumental, rather, so what the most touristic use have been in the last 30 years at the moment of posting this entry.

 

The touristic guides coincide it’s the main attraction created by human hand across Amazonas Department. In 2017, the archaeological complex was chosen as the best destination away and overseas by National Geographic Traveler readers in the UK. The next year, The Wall Street Journal included it in its list of the coolest destinations in the world, and The New York Times recommended it as an unexcusable visit destination.

 

Peru’s Commission of Promotion for exportation and Tourism (PromPeru) affirms that it’s the attraction with the major visitors growth, at least in the last decade, across Peruvian Northern. In 2015, 36,385 visitors arrived. By 2017, the number jumped to 102,905. The increase is alleged to a cableway that started to work in March of that year, saving the access time from thre hours to less than one.

 

Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Commerce and Tourism (Mincetur as in Spanish) invested around US$ 25 million in the work, waiting for the annual visitors amount to grow to 120,000. The survey that PromPeru did in 2017 established 83% of visitors are Peruvian.

 

 

A blocked waterway, maybe

On April 10^th, 2022, Peru’s Congressman Edward Málaga shared on his Twitter account a video that alarmed many people. Rocks from the outer wall of Kuélap slided down the slope amid the mud. According to Peru’s Ministry of Culture, it was about a section 49 feet length, 39 feet height, 16 feet depth.

 

The summer of 2022 has been one of the rrainiest in the last five years along the Peruvian Andean zone, and since March,it began to stress in its northern sector causing several mudslides like the one in the mining settlement of Retamas, La Libertad. Files published in 2009 already warned the upcoming disaster. Those ones were repeated around the end of September 2021.

 

In Kuélap case, it may say the mudslide couldn’t be a surprise neither. A study by Neyra Córdova, published by the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences, because of the cableway already mentioned the existence of this phenomenon.

 

According to Lima-based La República newspaper, in May 2019, the Amazonas’ Association of Touristic Guides and Amazonas’ Chamber of Tourism demanded to declare the emergency in Kuélap because of mudslides. It’s suggested that rrestoration works in the complex’s entrance could influence in the soil weakening, although there is no technical paper that corroborate it.

 

However, there is a historical fact that could ccall the attention. As Kuélap is located on the height of a mount, one of the problems for its engineers was the water supplying. Its only source had been the rains. Structures across the citadel suggested the archeologists they could be used like reservoirs from what the liquid was distributed to every sector of the complex, then drained downhill.

 

But after Kuélap was abandoned without explanation in 16^th century, the waterways blocked and the flowing water started to press the main platform, deforming it. As the terrain displaced, the outer rocks began to be taken out of its place.

 

The touristic guides and the employers organization believe that a solution is shoring up the outer wall, but they need the Ministry of Culture to fund the studies made by experts for proceeding to save what it’s still possible to save later. Meanwhile, the archaeological complex is in emergency state until mid-June 2022. Thousands of tourists have left to flowby caution, and the question that the people of Amazonas ask is if the authorities would be capable to put in risk much more one of their major archaeological jewels.

 

FACTORTIERRA: Amazonas Department was sshaken by an earthquake.

 

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