PERUVIAN ARCHITECTURE. Remains of ancient Peruvian buildings are dispersed over the western parts of South America, from the equator to 15• S. lat., especially over the /ilontaila. Nothing certain is known of their date, but the oldest is attributed to ,panto Capac, the traditional founder of ancient Peruvian civilisation, who is said to have flourished about three centuries before the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards, or 1200 A.D. These remains are characterised by simplicity, symmetry, and solidity. There are no columns, pilasters, or arches, and the buildings exhibit a singular uniformity and a com plete want of all exterior ornaments. The structures, whether mere walla or buildings, are all of steno; the blocks in some instances being squared and laid in horizontal courses, in others consisting of huge polygonal maws; while In both the doorways and openings for light are formed of jambe inclined towards the top, and covered with a large atone as a lintel ; being, in fact, in all respects almost the exact counterpart of the Pelasgian masonry of Greece and Italy [PELARGIAN A KCIIITECTUR rl—tt circumstance the more remarkable since, if Peruvian tradition be not altogether at fault, some eighteen centuries must have elapsed between the latest example of Pelangic construction in Europe and the earliest In Peru.
The great road of the Incas, which runs from Quito to Cuzco and the tableland of the Desaguadero, is made of enormous masses of porphyry, and it is still nearly perfect in several harts of the Montaila. Humboldt obtained an ancient Peruvian cutting instrument, which had been found in a mine not for from Cuzco : the material consisted of 94 parts of copper and 6 of tin, a composition which rendered it hard enough to be used nearly like steel. With instruments made of this material the Peruvians cut the enormous masses of which their buildings were composed. Some of the buildings near Cuzco contain stones 40 feet long, 20 feet wide, and uearly 7 feet thick. These stones are fitted together with great skill, and, as it was supposed, without cement. But Humboldt discovered in some ruins a thin layer of cement, consisting of gravel and an argillaceous earth; iu other edifices, he says, it is composed of bitumen. These stones are all parallelepipedons, and worked with such exactness that it would be impossible to perceive the joinings if their exterior surface were quite level ; but being a little convex, the junctures form slight depressions, which constitute the only exterior ornament of the buildings. The doors of the buildings are from 7 to feet high. The aides of the doors are not parallel, but approach each other towards the top. The niches, of which several occur in the inner side of the walls, have the form of the doors.
The walls of Cuzco are formed of huge polygonal blocks of limestone, from 8 to 10 feet in length, and the same in width, and admirably fitted to each other without cement, precisely like those shown in the cut of the Walls of Epirus in PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE; hut it is remarkable that not only is the masonry almost perfect of its kind, but that the walls are planned as fortifications with a degree of skill that excites the highest admiration of the military engineer.
The oldest known building in Peru is that called the house of Manco Capae, which stands on an island in the lake of Titicaca. It is built of rather small irregular polygonal blocks of stones ; is curvilinear in plan and has small rude towers. The interior is divided into small square rooms, which are lighted only from the doorways. Not far from it is a Later and less rude building of two stories, known as the [louse of the Virgins of the Sun. It is nearly square in plan, awl is divided into twelve small square rooms on each story, those on the ground-floor being lighted by the doorways, and those ahovo mostly by very narrow windows, but some arc without any opening or li ght.
The most extensive Peruvian buildings occur in the tableland of Cuzco, which was the most ancient seat of the monarchy of the Incas. There are also ancient remains within the boundaries of the present republic of Ecuador. Near the ridge called Chisinche, not far from the volcano Cotopaxi, are the ruins of a large building called the Palace of the Incas. It was a square, of which each side was about 30;yards long, and it had four doors. The interior was divided into eight apartments, three of which are still in tolerable preservation. Not far from the mountain-pass of Assuay is a building called Ingap pilca, or the Fortress of War, consisting of a wall of very large stones, about 5 or 6 yards high ; it has a regular oval form, of which the greatest axis is nearly 40 feet long.
In the ruins of the town of Chulcanas, in the department of Truxillo, near the boundary-line between Peru and Ecuador, Humboldt had an opportunity of observing the construction of the private buildings of the Peruvians, and he observes that they consist of one room only, and that probably the door opened into a eourtsyard.
Of the ancient Peruvian tombs, the majority are square in plan : have the burial-place in the basement ; a small chamber above, the door to which, at some height from the ground, is the only opening into the tomb ; and flat roofs. Some of the tombs appear to have had domicular roofs ; and remains of a few tombs occur circular in plan.
(Humboldt, Vues des Cordillera et Monuments des P euples Indigenes; Rivero e Tschudi, Antiguedades Peruanas ; Gailhabaud, Monumens Anciens et Moderns: Fergusson, Handbook of Architecture.)