Pikillacta
Sprawling pre-Inca administrative city of stone compounds, hiding tiny buried offerings of turquoise and shell.
This guide to Pikillacta in Cusco starts underground, with forty tiny stone figures, none taller than a thumbnail, buried beneath the plaza in front of you. You'll hear how this two-story city of stone compounds and straight corridors belonged not to the Inca but to the earlier Wari civilization, and how a 2019 excavation near the plaza turned up a cache of miniature idols, silver-plated warrior figures and fragments of spondylus shell traded up from the Pacific coast. The guide traces the imported turquoise carved elsewhere on the site and the niched halls built for displaying such pieces. Walk the straight corridors and imagine what else these builders left behind.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.