The area of Lipon has an elevation of 3,200m, and for the most part is fairly dry. All of the settlements in the area have some sort of irrigation, the creeks draining the mountains surrounding the valley and the Cusco river running down the middle supply a fair amopunt of water, but going by the efforts of early people, irrigation was the only way to get a decent crop from off of the land. No pumps were used of course, so it was all done by rock lined channels carefully using the contours and natural features of the land to give terraced fields trickles of water for feeding the crops.
The amount of rock used in this terracing is immense, the channels for the water mostly run on the right side of the image.
The volume of water is not immense, but it is used multiple times, flowing from one terrace down to the next.
There are two areas bracketing the mouth of the valley with remains of habitation.
The fact that the irrigation system still functions quite well after over 1,000 years is amazing. To my eyes there are traces of how water was diverted at the top of the slope to cover yet another field, one above and to the right of the top image. The broken area with no terracing could have been left to allow the water to drain into the lower terracing.
No one has done an estimate of the amount of hours of labour that went into creating this field system, but it speaks to me of an area that valued its arable land to an extreme, that such a large amount of labour for a relatively small amount of land. I did not have time to search the surrounding land, but even the valley way below has many fields which could have been irrigated at a much lower labour cost.
The in accesability of the valley may have an indication as to why it was used, the long winding road would discourage anyone from making their way up, and the valley itself is hidden except from the peaks, making it very hard to attack and easy to defend.
An interesting place, and truly lovely spot for a picnic.
This is truly amazing and gorgeous to boot. I'm enthralled with the uniform nature of the stones. In some cases there are a few that are larger and they seem more natural in shape but by and large the stones look like they were chiseled into shape. It reminds me so much of the technique we were using at the castle...the larger stones are included to "lock" the other stones in place as the levels go up. I would love to see these in person, but thanks for the pictures! They will suffice for now. :-)
ReplyDeleteKensae
ReplyDeleteCould I use one of these pictures in my book? No fee but credit of course
Kensae
ReplyDeleteCould I use one of these pictures in my book? No fee but credit of course