UCLA

Empires use monumentality in order to control conquered populations and maintain political stability among the elite in the core. The Inca Empire, an Andean state in power during the 15th and early 16th centuries, used the ceque system, a network of ritual pathways connecting wak'as, or sacred places, as a tool to keep the elite and others tied to the state. The locations of these wak'as were recorded by the Spaniards in the late 16th and 17th centuries. In my thesis, I argue that there are wak'as and perhaps ceques that were not recorded by the Spanish that pertained to the ceque system and examine what defines a ceque line using visual and cluster analysis through GIS software.