Inca Storage Systems: Qollqa

The qollqa system was the imperial storage network of the Inca state, comprising thousands of storehouses distributed across the Andes from southern Colombia to central Chile. The qollqas were used to stockpile maize, quinoa, dried potatoes, dried meat, coca leaves, cotton, and other staples and raw materials, and they were a central feature of the agricultural and economic policy of the empire. The system, which was developed in the reign of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui in the mid-fifteenth century and expanded under his successors, was one of the most distinctive institutions of the Inca state and one of the principal reasons for the resilience of the imperial economy. The qollqa system was organized as a state monopoly, with the central administration controlling the production, storage, and distribution of agricultural staples and using the stored goods to support the imperial army, the mit’a labor system, and the aqllakuna, the chosen women.

The system is documented in the accounts of the colonial chroniclers, in particular Pedro Cieza de León, Pedro Sancho de la Hoz, and Bernabé Cobo, all of whom describe the size and scope of the imperial storehouses. Cieza de León, who traveled through the Andes in the 1540s and 1550s, recorded that the Inca had built thousands of qollqas in every province of the empire and that the stored goods were used to feed armies, to support populations in years of poor harvest, and to supply the mit’a laborers on imperial projects. The system is also documented in the quipus, the knotted-cord records that the Inca used to track the production, storage, and distribution of goods, although the quipus of the imperial period have largely been lost.

The design of the qollqas

The individual qollqas were typically built of stone, with a half-buried floor, a single narrow doorway, and a stone or thatched roof. The floor was set below ground level to take advantage of the cool temperatures of the high-altitude environment, while the walls were built of polygonal or coursed masonry and were thick enough to insulate the interior. The doorways were typically trapezoidal, in conformity with the imperial canon, and were oriented to minimize exposure to direct sunlight. The roofs were typically made of thatch or, in the most important qollqas, of stone slabs supported on wooden beams.

The design of the qollqas was specifically adapted to the storage of dried foods. The cool, dry, and well-ventilated interior of the qollqa preserved maize, quinoa, dried potatoes (known as chuño), and other staples for years at a time. The half-buried floor took advantage of the geothermal stability of the high-altitude environment, the thick stone walls provided insulation, and the trapezoidal doorway minimized the entry of heat and moisture. The design was so effective that many qollqas are still in use today, more than five centuries after their construction, for the storage of grain and other agricultural products.

The size of individual qollqas varied considerably, from small domestic storehouses of a few square meters to large state granaries of more than 100 square meters. The largest of the imperial granaries, the qollqas of Colcamayo, near the town of Juliaca, included more than 600 individual storehouses and could hold approximately 5,000 tons of grain. The complex at Colcamayo was one of the most extensive in the empire and is documented in the colonial record, although it has been largely destroyed in the modern period.

The qollqas of Tipón

The qollqas of Tipón, in the Lucre basin southeast of Cusco, include more than 280 individual storehouses, organized into groups on a series of terraces. The Tipón site is one of the most extensive and best-preserved examples of Inca state storage. The individual storehouses are arranged in a grid, and the complex is laid out in a way that allows for a steady flow of goods in and out. The site is currently being studied by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and by international projects.

The Tipón complex is conventionally dated to the reign of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui and is interpreted as a state granary rather than a ceremonial center, although the site is also associated with a hydraulic system that supplied water to the agricultural terraces in the surrounding area. The storehouses are built of polygonal masonry, with the characteristic half-buried floor and trapezoidal doorway of the imperial canon. The complex is integrated with the agricultural terraces of the Lucre basin and is connected by a road to the principal road system of the empire.

The Tipón complex is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Cusco region and is recognized as a national cultural treasure of Peru. The site is open to the public, although the qollqas are fragile and the Peruvian Ministry of Culture has restricted access to some of the more vulnerable structures. The site has been the subject of intensive archaeological work in the twenty-first century, and the results have clarified the construction sequence, the organization of storage, and the relationship between the qollqas and the surrounding agricultural landscape.

State granaries and the imperial economy

The state granaries of the Inca were used to support the imperial cult, the imperial army, and the imperial administration. They were placed near important agricultural areas, near major roads, and at the frontiers of the empire. The system was organized as a state monopoly, with the central administration controlling the production, storage, and distribution of agricultural staples and using the stored goods to support imperial projects and to insure the population against crop failure.

The state took a share of agricultural production as a tax, stored it in the qollqas, and distributed it to the population in years of poor harvest, as a form of insurance, and to soldiers and laborers on imperial projects. The colonial chronicler Pedro Cieza de León recorded that the Inca were able to feed populations for years from these state stores. The storage system also supported the imperial army, the mit’a labor system, and the aqllakuna, the chosen women, who lived in cloisters in the major cities. The system was a major reason for the resilience of the Inca economy, particularly during periods of drought, frost, or other natural disasters.

The imperial administration kept detailed records of the contents of the qollqas on quipus, knotted-cord devices used to record numerical information. The records included the quantity of each type of good stored, the source of the goods, and the destination. The system was administered by the quipucamayos, the keepers of the quipus, who were responsible for tracking the flow of goods in and out of the qollqas. The Spanish chroniclers were impressed by the efficiency of the system, and several of them compared it favorably to the storage systems of contemporary Europe.

Regional variants and specialized storehouses

The qollqa system was not uniform across the empire. In the highlands, the qollqas were typically built of stone, with thatched or stone slab roofs, and were used to store maize, quinoa, and dried potatoes. In the coastal region, the qollqas were often built of adobe, with flat roofs, and were used to store maize, beans, and chili peppers. In the eastern lowlands, the qollqas were often built of wood and thatch, and were used to store coca leaves, cotton, and other tropical products. The design of the qollqas was adapted to the local climate, the type of goods stored, and the local building tradition.

A number of specialized storehouses were used for the storage of ritual goods, including chicha (maize beer), coca leaves, and fine textiles. These storehouses were typically located near temples and ceremonial centers, and they were administered by religious specialists. The qollqas of the Coricancha, for example, were used to store the aqha, the maize beer used in the imperial cult, and the storage of the aqha was a sacred duty. The qollqas of the Acllahuasi, the house of the chosen women, were used to store the fine textiles produced by the aqllakuna, the chosen women.

The decline of the qollqa system

The Spanish conquest of 1532 and the subsequent collapse of the Inca state led to the rapid decline of the qollqa system. The Spanish appropriated the contents of the qollqas, used the storehouses for their own purposes, and gradually abandoned the system of state storage. The Spanish colonial administration did not maintain the mit’a labor system, the ayllu social organization, or the imperial road system, all of which were necessary for the operation of the qollqa system. The decline of the system was accelerated by the introduction of European crops, the displacement of the indigenous population, and the destruction of the agricultural terraces of the Andes.

Despite this, many qollqas survive across the Andean region, particularly in the highlands of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The qollqas of Tipón, Colcamayo, Huchuy Qosqo, and the Sacred Valley are among the most studied, and several thousand individual storehouses have been documented in archaeological surveys. The surviving qollqas are recognized as national cultural treasures of the Andean countries and are protected by national legislation. The system has also attracted the attention of modern scholars interested in the resilience of the Andean agricultural system and in the potential of state storage to insure against food insecurity.

Quipus, accounting, and the bureaucracy of storage

The administration of the qollqa network depended on the quipu, the knotted-cord device used throughout the empire to record numerical information. Each qollqa complex was overseen by a team of quipucamayos, officials trained in the reading and writing of quipus, who kept precise records of the goods stored, their origin, their quantity, and their destination. The records distinguished among categories of goods, types of container, units of measure, and the ayllu or suyu of origin, and they allowed the central administration to track the flow of staples across the empire in near real time. The quipucamayos of the principal imperial granaries were among the most highly trained specialists in the Inca bureaucracy, and their offices were located in dedicated compounds adjacent to the storage sites.

The quipus used in the storage system recorded not only quantities but also obligations, tributes, and debts. The system thus functioned simultaneously as a stock inventory, a tax register, and a credit ledger. A quipu associated with a qollqa complex might list the maize owed by a particular province, the quinoa delivered from a particular ayllu, the textiles stored on behalf of a particular panaca, and the labor days owed to the state under the mit’a system. The integration of storage with record-keeping made the Inca state unusually capable of coordinating large-scale economic activity and contributed to the resilience of the imperial economy in the face of drought, frost, and other natural disasters.

After the Spanish conquest, the quipu system was largely abandoned, and the surviving quipus were either destroyed or dispersed. A small number of quipus survive in collections in Peru, Bolivia, and Europe, and they have been the subject of intensive study since the nineteenth century. The decipherment of the quipus is incomplete, and the meaning of many of the surviving examples remains unknown, but the records associated with storage are among the most studied. They have allowed modern scholars to reconstruct in part the scale and organization of the qollqa system and to confirm many of the descriptions provided by the colonial chroniclers.

Archaeological evidence and surviving qollqas

The archaeological evidence for the qollqa system is extensive, with several thousand individual storehouses documented across the Andean region. The principal concentrations of surviving qollqas are in the highlands of Peru, particularly in the Cusco region, the Sacred Valley, the Colca Valley, and the Lake Titicaca basin. The Cusco region alone contains several hundred documented qollqas, including the major complexes at Tipón, Colcamayo, Huchuy Qosqo, and the Sacred Valley. The qollqas of these complexes are typically built of polygonal or coursed masonry, with the characteristic half-buried floors and trapezoidal doorways of the imperial canon, and they are integrated with agricultural terraces, irrigation canals, and roads.

The most extensively studied site is the Tipón complex in the Lucre basin, which has been the subject of intensive archaeological work by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and by international projects led by the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco. The work at Tipón has clarified the construction sequence, the organization of storage, and the relationship between the qollqas and the surrounding agricultural landscape. The work has also revealed a sophisticated system of internal organization, with the individual storehouses grouped by function, type of good, and administrative unit. The Tipón site is recognized as a national cultural treasure of Peru and is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Cusco region.

Other significant sites include the qollqas of Huchuy Qosqo, a hilltop site above the Sacred Valley; the qollqas of the Colca Valley, which are still in use by local communities; and the qollqas of the Cotahuasi Canyon, which are among the most isolated and best-preserved in the empire. The qollqas of the Cusco region have been particularly important in establishing the chronology of the imperial building program, as the construction of the qollqas can be tied to the reigns of particular emperors through the archaeological record and the colonial chronicles. The evidence suggests that the system was developed rapidly in the reign of Pachacuti and expanded in the reigns of his successors, with the principal state granaries built in the period between approximately 1450 and 1525.