Paula Bayarte |
Lima, (EFE).- Who were really the Incas? An exhibition in Lima tries to answer this question through a journey through time with 250 pieces that go beyond the image of warriors and delves into their daily life to discover in a deeper way and far from stereotypes this civilization that forms part of the Peruvian identity.
“The Inca is very important as a sign of national and cultural identity and is closely associated with a patrimonial value, but the idea is to complement that look with a much deeper knowledge of daily life and that it may have implied and in its development from from the colony,” the director of the Lima Art Museum (MALI), Sharon Lerner, told EFE.
“Incas beyond the empire” is an exhibition that opens its doors after five years of work and research and that has brought to the Lima museum pieces from state and private collections that go from the influences prior to the birth of civilization, the splendor of the empire and the colonial era.
Who were the Incas?
“The objective of the exhibition is to bring the public a large amount of information that has been worked on with specialists from different disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Archeology and Linguistics,” MALI’s curator of pre-Columbian art, Julio Rucabado, told EFE.
“It is the first time that a museum in Peru can have the opportunity to ask or rethink who the Incas were, which is a central question that guides the narrative of the exhibition,” he added.
He explained that this is far from the traditional image of gold and silver pieces and that despite not exhibiting treasures, pieces that reflect a reality and tell stories are shown, ranging from colorful drawings on “queros” (typical Inca containers) to material agricultural or ceremonial jewelry.
“We want to offer the public experiences to reconnect with their Incas and see through objects and works of art who they were not only in the flourishing of a great empire, but also to see what happens after 1532, see how their culture is transformed and how it survives after the viceregal era to the present day, in such an important way that it is seen in manifestations of art design and living culture in the 20th and 21st centuries”, indicated the curator.
“Peru is an archaeological giant,” said the head of mission of the Swiss embassy, Stefano Vescovi, in the presentation, referring to the invitation to continue exploring that this exhibition offers due to the number of edges it presents and the questions it raises.
incas in depth
Through “unkus”, the tunics worn by the Incas, stories of war and ceremonies are told, they also give clues about what their life was like, various decorations for the body thanks to which different social strata, customs and roles can be known. in the state apparatus.
The exhibition reveals the “acllass”, girls who were chosen to serve the sun god or inti and wove embroideries that are now historical vestiges or the “coya”, the main women of the Inca who also ruled.
Another of the focal points of the sample is to show that Quechua, a language attributed to the Incas, is not really their crop.
“Quechua is one of the languages that was used during the time of the empire. It originates several hundred years before the imperial formation of the Tahuantinsuyo, basically with the Waris that were in the Cuzco area,” said Rucabado.
But when the Incas began to develop relations with their neighbors and create an empire, they used Quechua as a kind of lingua franca and in the colonial era it became popular in the area of the Central Andes, and continues to this day, when there are 7 million speakers in the country.
end of the inca empire
Lerner explained that experts in the pre-Columbian period have worked hand in hand with the colonial period in this exhibition, which has turned out to be very interesting “because it allows us to understand a rich historical journey that goes beyond a specific moment and understand how something is.” that survives and accompanies us in time”.
In fact, the colonial room shows the rich and unprecedented integration of the Inca and Spanish elites, as a result of which there are Christian pieces with Andean decorative elements or clothing that mixes both worlds.
Destroying precisely the images that were built at that time about the warrior and bloodthirsty Incas and demystifying certain stories built later that alter historical episodes is possible thanks to this type of work.
“We want to broaden the visitor’s vision of the Incas and demonstrate other riches of the empire much greater than one imagines,” Lerner concluded.