Some general observations.
Common features across the major rock panels
There is a spiral – just one spiral – on almost every rock or rock panel. There are eight spirals in all. None of these spirals are fresh white image, and they are generally centrally placed, which some have argued implies an older, or earlier drawing.
There are 1000 or 2000 images drawn over probably 1500 years, and probably by 500 different artists.
Even the apparently simple repeated symbols, such as the 100 tumis, are seen on closer inspection to be different but similar icons drawn by different hands.
TheAS a simplifiaction we can i agine three periods of drawing. More acuucate analysis of the image may allow a more detailed calssification.
This however only applies to the bright recent images, many of which depict recognisable objects of the human world. The dark hidden images, frequently abstract, that can be discovered behind these have a different logic.
Note that the path, the men, the tree-climbing fox are a new addition, a thousand years after the lake deities and the mountain ice fall were first drawn. They speak of the pilgrimages of the Huarochiri Manuscript, where on festival day men race to Pariacaca with their llamas to sacrifice. This is after the Incas have come to Pachacamac, added their support and wealth to the shrine, and built a road from Pachacamac to Cusco, via the peaks of Pariacaca, and founded llama grounds to breed and mature animals for sacrifice, on the hillsides of Huarochiri. This was most likely the last artistic addition to the tableau on the stone.
Paria Caca`s shrine was not on the top of the mountain. In fact its whereabouts is unknown. It has often been suggested that a rock shelter with rock paintings showing pregnant camelids, just above Mullococha next to the stone stairway, might have been the site.
The northern panel of this rock, facing upriver, has many largely indistinct images, often drawn one on top of another. But there is a ladder design or staircase, ascending the rock towards a “lake”, a depression in the rock where water gathers. A small dot track can also be seen rising from this lake.
Another chronicler, Fray Bernabé Cobo, gives us much more detail. Whilst Garcilaso Inca tells us little about the Inca knowledge of the stars, Friar Cobo suggests that the indigenous people recognised at least a dozen celestial objects.
His Historia del Nuevo Mundo was written in 1653. “All the shepherds respect and make sacrifices to what the astrologers call Lira, which they call Urcuchillay, which is to say a multi-coloured carnero, which looks after the conservation of stock; and other small stars which are below in the form of a T, said to be the feet and the head…they also venerate another close by called Cantachillay, which is is also large, and another smaller one next to it, which they consider to be a llama with its cordero which proceeds from Urcuchillay.”
“Those who live in the mountains and the yunca lands, worship and sacrifice to another star they call Chuqichinchay, which is said to be a tiger and is in charge of all the tigers, bears and lions, they ask in the sacrifice that these beasts do them no harm. …Also a large number worship another called Machacuay, which they believe is responsible for the care of serpents, snakes and vipers, primarily because it appears in that form…they respect another star called Ancochinchay, which they say looks after the conservation of other animals.”
“In summary, for each species of animal they know a star in the sky, so there are many that they worship and have their own names and make sacrifices, those that they call Topatorca, Chacana, Miro Mamana, Miquiquiray, Quiantopa, and others, which include all of the stars of first magnitude, not one of which does not have its own name, as well as the morning and evening stars, and the most notable signs and planets, and although I have described them in general terms, for each of them they have their fabulous stories…”
The hills around the coast have no vegetation and little rainfall. As the burial cloths, the peanut shells and lucuma nuts remain for centuries, so do trails on the hillsides, which like the Nazca lines disturb the surface of the ground revealing lighter coloured soil beneath. Paths along the mountain ridges are clear enough on Google Earth, in some cases showing the multiple parallel routes that would be left by driven herds of livestock.
So it is easy enough today to trace the network of paths that crosses over the hills from Minay and Cochineros to the valley of Chichacara. The paths climb steeply to over 2000 metres to a broad plateau where there are occasional small round walled enclosures, before descending into the next valley.
Similarly, if we look at the hills to the south, there are networks of paths which climb up to the heights from Totora Bajo, a kilometre upriver of Cochineros, and from the modern steel girder bridge and its strata of ancient burials three kilometres downriver. They cross over to the next river valley, to Olmas, but in between there are unmistakeable signs of mines, some reached by historic footpaths, and others with modern tracks for four wheel drive vehicles.
It could even be the source of a copper industry celebrated with multiple images of crudely crafted T-blade knives on the blue stones of Cochineros. The only way to be sure would be to visit.