Identifier: islandsoftiticac00band (find matches)
Title: The islands of Titicaca and Koati, illustrated
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse, 1840-1914
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Hispanic Society of America
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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e most regular sys-tem of terraces on the Island. The facing of these andenes, the elevation of which variesbetween two and thirteen feet, is exceedingly well done.The stones are so carefully broken that they might pass fora modern wall, laid in adobe mud in place of mortar. Ascentfrom one anden to the other is effected in places by stonesteps built along the fronts of terraces, or by stepping-stones, or on inclined planes. The stepping-stones are likethose at Kasapata. The terraces are level, and shrubberygrows along edges and sides, so that from a distance its ap-pearance is striking, from the regularity of dark green lines. bs fc K S; 65 65 T W 0S *-!• H I^ l-i cv ^ Hj ^ 13 0 X S5 M> 0) 0 H I.X 0 O X fc, cS cS H ^ a a c3 cS z> a 1—1 I—1 ^ ^ ;:l n^ o -tJ p cS cS ft C !« 0) t> Si a3 i! o3 r-^ cS c3 Is ^ 9 cs cS d c3 a »H O cS .s ^ ^. 2 :: o CO r—I M OS tc V ^ -CI O Q o e o o3 r/2 ^ ft:: ® C. Pi c3 03 S O M ft H -^ -s ira :: S . ^ ft --^ ?:3 ft c6 X: o .2 * * rs CC
Text Appearing After Image:
ANCIENT RUINS ON THE ISLAND OF TITICACA 227 On many of these terraces a layer of black soil, fromthree to six inches thick, and entirely different from thesoil of its surroundings or of the Island in general, isnoticed. It is a rich loam. The story goes that the Incashad it brought from the transandine regions of Yungas inorder to grow coca on Titicaca. As Cobo remarks, the at-tempt failed on account of the climate. But his descriptionof the site where that trial is said to have been made doesnot agree with Chucaripu, so that there is little foundationfor the story, whether told in the seventeenth century^^ orin the nineteenth. It may be that an attempt was made toraise coca on the Island, previous to the conquest, but itwould only show that those who made it had not the leastidea of the influence of climate and altitude upon vege-tation. Artificial objects, such as topos and tumis, some ofprecious metal, have been found on these andenes, but weheard neither of buildings nor burials.

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