The fortress of Kuelap is located in the cloud forest of the region of Amazonas; Kuelap is a proof of the engineering skills of the Chachapoyas, a tribe who inhabited the area AD 1000 around.
Kuelap is built in a north south orientation. It consists of two large platforms on which a considerable city of circular buildings was built. The most impressive aspect of this places are the enormous ramparts, 25 meters high at some points and 600 meters long. The citadel has three narrow entrances, two to the east and one to the west, allowing only one person to pass through at a time, thus aiding the defenders of the citadel. At the south end rises a circular construction about six meters high, in the shape of a truncated, inverted cone; it seems to have served for ceremonial function. The fortress must have been impregnable to invading warriors from neighboring kingdoms, although finally the Inca soldiers managed to conquer the Chachapoyas.
The citadel is made of stone, but unlike Inca architecture, featured fantastic and animal figures, and changed the traditional pattern of geometric designs.
Ancient Peruvians were highly successful in integrating with nature. The Chachapoyas, whose secrets still lie buried in the dense jungle, created harmonic structures in a privileged site, a timeless land where the jungle-clad hills are covered by mist. |