Spanish historian recounts quest to locate last Inca capital

Lima, Jul 8 (EFE). —  Spanish historian and journalist Santiago del Valle’s book “Vilcabamba: The Sacred Refuge of the Incas” looks back at the 16 expeditions carried out since 1997 to locate Hatun Vilcabamba, the last capital of the Incas, a site in the southern Peruvian region of Cuzco that is to be excavated in earnest beginning next year.

Del Valle told EFE that archaeologists have excavated just 1 percent of the settlement, which is nestled amid rugged, jungleclad slopes at a height of more than 3,000 meters (9,835 feet) and located 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Machu Picchu.

“It’s a tremendously steep area, with waterfalls, very humid and abandoned for centuries. The city is covered by vegetation. We were walking over one building and you couldn’t see what was underneath,” he said.

The writer said the Incas fled to Vilcabamba from Ollantaytambo, just a few kilometers from their imperial capital in Cuzco, after the failure of Manco Inca’s 1536 rebellion against the Spanish conquistadors.

The scale of Hatun Vilcabamba and the surrounding landscape are “just as fascinating” as Machu Picchu but the architecture pales in comparison, according to Del Valle, who said that whereas the famed Inca citadel was built at the height of the Inca empire “it’s likely they couldn’t dedicate such enormous effort” to the other site.

He said analysis of sawn timber in the area indicated Vilcabamba had been occupied by preIncan civilizations, “probably the Chankas.”

To locate Hatun Vilcabamba, Del Valle used historical chronicles to reconstruct the fourday route that Spanish colonial troops used in 1572 in launching their final attack on that outpost and Tupac Amaru, the last Inca ruler.

The historian, who previously worked for Agencia EFE and Spanish public service broadcaster Television Española in the northwestern region of Galicia, will present his book and photographs of his expeditions next Thursday at the Spanish Cultural Center in Lima.