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Tambo Colorado

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Tambo Colorado Puka Tampu Pucallacta, Pucahuasi
Tambo Colorado overview
Coordinates:13°18′00″S 75°10′00″W / -13.3, -75.166667
Culture	Inca
Era	Late Horizon
Period	1470 AD - 1532 AD
Country Region	Peru Ica
Official website
n/a

Tambo Colorado remains of original colours on adobe walls

Tambo Colorado is a well-preserved Inca adobe complex on the coast of Peru also know as Puka Tampu, Pucallacta or Pucahuasi.

1 Location
2 Name
3 History
4 Lay-out
5 Use
6 Museum
7 External links

Location

The site is located on the south coast of Perú in the Pisco River Valley about 40 km along the highway to Ayacucho know as the Via de los Libertadores, close to the town of Pisco.

Name

The site owes it name to the abundant use of colors on the walls. Thanks to favorable (very dry) environmental conditions, many walls at Tambo, both internal and external, retain enough residual colored paint to accurately reconstruct what the original wall painting would have been like (see video at bottom of this page). Color here was often applied in horizontal strips of red, black, white, and yellow ochre atop stucco, and variation in color would accentuate architectural features such as niches. Trapezoidal niches at Tambo have one or two recesses each, likely used for the placement of important objects. As with all Inca constructions, the overall dimensions of niche construction are standardized across the entire site.

History

The site was most likely built at the end of the 15th century during the reign of the Inca king Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui also known as Pachacutec.

Lay-out

Plan of Northern Palace, Tambo Colorado, cut from a Laser Scan

The site is comprised of several structures around a large central plaza. The central plaza is shaped like a trapezoid with its largest side being 150 m long. The main structures are grouped together in a northern part and a southern part (Sector Norte and Sector Sur). These structures are known as the Northern palace and the two Southern Palaces, flanked by an Ushnu (raised ceremonial platform) and a building known as the Utilities Structure.