SITE DIRECTORY
Santiago looking northeast with active trench mine
in right background.
Santiago is located on the north slope of Cerro Huayna Porco, adjacent to the open trench mine that is still being worked. Mining activities and sheet wash from the surrounding hills have destroyed much of the surface architecture, and subsurface preservation is also poor. A large, rectilinear compound is located to the north of the quebrada that runs through the site, and consists of rectangular rooms arranged around an unpaved courtyard. Excavations in one of the rooms on the northern side of the compound revealed a massive exterior wall that was approximately 1 meter wide and set on stone footings; the interior of the room had been covered with white plaster. A small reverberatory furnace is located in the center of the courtyard. The layout and architectural features of this building indicate that it was constructed by the Spaniards, an interpretation that is supported by the slightly higher proportion (16.67%) and diversity of European ceramics recovered from excavation compared to the assemblages from Uruquilla and Huayrachinas (12.44 and 9.29% respectively).
Topographic map of Santiago. Oral tradition indicates
large structure was Pizarro's house.
A mineralogical report issued under the auspices of the U.N. Special Fund in 1965 mentions that according to oral tradition these ruins were of Pizarro’s residence at Porco. While the compound may have provided some housing, its location, the relatively small amount of domestic debris associated with it, and the large quantity of mineral fragments recovered from an otherwise empty room on the south side of the building suggest that it was used primarily to store, and perhaps process, ore. This does not, however, preclude its occasional use by Pizarro or his representatives as living quarters.
Smaller single room structures approximately 100 m to the east and to
the south of the compound that have been largely destroyed by road construction
and mining activities may have been associated with Inka exploitation
of the mine.
Funding for this project provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the National Science Foundation, the Curtiss T. Brennan and Mary G. Brennan
Foundation, and Colorado State University.
Please direct any comments or questions about the project to the director,
Mary Van Buren.
Web site designed by Andrew Mueller