Shincal

El Shincal de Quimivil lies at the foot of the mountains south of the Hualfín valley. Built by the Inca in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, it was one of their great centres in the southern Andes. A broad central plaza held an ushnu, a stone platform from which ceremonies could be presided over. Large halls, storehouses, residential enclosures and a stone aqueduct surrounded the civic centre.

The Inca incorporated northwestern Argentina into Kollasuyu, the southern quarter of their empire. At Shincal, two hills flanking the plaza were levelled and provided with stairways, and were associated with solar worship. Roads connected the centre with agricultural lands and other installations. Occupation continued after the collapse of Inca rule, into the colonial period and the indigenous uprising of the 1630s. Its carefully ordered buildings show how imperial authority took physical form far from Cuzco.