Titi'kaka

Titi'kaka is the Aymara name of the Island of the Sun in southern Lake Titicaca, held by the Incas to be the birthplace of the sun god Inti. One origin myth recorded by the chronicler Bernabé Cobo tells of the Sun rising from behind the island's rock, Titi Qala. Manco Cápac, first of the Incas and son of Inti, was said to have issued from the same rock.

Settlement reached back to the third millennium before Christ, and a Tiwanaku ritual centre stood above the crag before the Inca conquest in the fifteenth century. After the conquest, Titi Qala became a pilgrimage destination, ranked with Pachacamac.

The tenth Inca, Túpac Yupanqui, who reigned from about 1471 to 1493, built a temple at the sacred rock, a convent for chosen women and an inn for pilgrims. Their boats crossed the lake from towns such as Pomata.