Wari Empire: The First Andean Empire Before the Inca

The Wari Empire was the first large state to unite much of the Andes, flourishing in the highlands of Peru from about AD 600 to 1000. From its capital, Huari, near modern Ayacucho, it built planned administrative centres, roads and a system of record-keeping with knotted cords. These achievements laid foundations that the Inca Empire would build on some five centuries later.

The Middle Horizon

Archaeologists divide Andean history into periods, and the era of Wari dominance is called the Middle Horizon, roughly 600–1000. A “horizon” is a time when one style spread widely across many regions. The term comes from a chronology developed in the mid-20th century by archaeologists including John Rowe, anchored in the pottery sequence of the Ica valley on the south coast. In the Middle Horizon, Wari pottery, textiles and buildings appeared across much of Peru, alongside the influence of Tiwanaku in the south.

Before Wari, the Andes were home to regional cultures such as the Moche on the north coast and the Nasca on the south coast. Wari drew on several earlier traditions, especially the Huarpa culture of the Ayacucho region and Nasca influences.

The capital at Huari

Huari, the capital, lies about 25 km north of Ayacucho at around 2,800 m above sea level. It was a dense city of high stone-walled enclosures, patios and narrow streets. Its core covered several square kilometres, and estimates of its population range widely, from about 10,000 to 40,000 or more.

The city contained temples, elite residences and underground tombs. One sector, Vegachayoq Moqo, held a D-shaped temple, a building type characteristic of Wari religious architecture. Nearby, at Conchopata, archaeologists found deposits of large painted urns deliberately smashed in rituals, decorated with the Staff God, a figure holding two staffs also known from Tiwanaku.

Administrative centres

Wari’s most distinctive buildings are its planned provincial centres, built on grids of rectangular enclosures with long, high walls. The largest known is Pikillacta, near Cusco, which covers about 2 sq km and contains hundreds of rooms and patios, many perhaps used for storage, housing or feasting.

Other centres include Viracochapampa near Huamachuco in the north, which appears never to have been finished, and Jincamocco in the south-central highlands. On the summit of Cerro Baúl in the Moquegua valley, Wari built an outpost close to Tiwanaku colonies. There archaeologists found a large brewery for chicha, a maize beer served at feasts that helped build political loyalty.

In 2012 a team led by Polish archaeologist Miłosz Giersz discovered an unlooted Wari tomb at Castillo de Huarmey on the north-central coast. It held the remains of dozens of individuals, most of them women of high status, along with gold and silver jewellery and fine textiles, showing the reach of Wari elites far from the capital.

Roads, khipu and administration

Wari built roads linking its capital with its provincial centres. Some later formed part of the Inca road system, although how much of the Inca network followed Wari routes is debated.

Wari officials also kept records on khipu, bundles of coloured cords tied with knots. Wari khipu have been radiocarbon-dated to the Middle Horizon, some to the 7th to 10th centuries. They differ from Inca khipu, often using bands of coloured thread wrapped around the cords. Like Inca khipu, they have not been fully deciphered, but they probably recorded numbers such as tribute and labour.

Wari farmers expanded terraced agriculture on hillsides, especially for maize, and the state appears to have organised labour on a large scale. Fine tapestry tunics with abstract, repeating designs were probably worn by officials and may have marked rank.

Art, religion and the Staff God

Wari art drew on a body of religious imagery shared with Tiwanaku. Its best-known figure is the Staff God, a frontal deity with rays around the head who holds a staff in each hand, accompanied by winged attendants shown in profile. Wari potters painted these images in bold colours on large urns and drinking vessels, many of which were deliberately smashed and buried in offering deposits.

Wari weavers produced some of the finest textiles of the ancient Americas. Their tapestry tunics, made of cotton and camelid fibre, break figures into abstract, stretched and compressed patterns that can be hard to recognise. Such textiles were valuable gifts and status symbols, and they travelled widely across the empire.

Elite tombs at the capital included underground galleries cut into the bedrock, such as those at Monqachayoq. Most were looted long ago, which is one reason the unlooted tomb at Castillo de Huarmey was so important.

Wari and Tiwanaku

Wari and Tiwanaku flourished at the same time and shared much of their religious imagery, but they were separate states with different capitals and building traditions. Wari architecture favoured rectangular walled enclosures, while Tiwanaku built stone platforms and sunken courts.

The two met in the Moquegua valley of southern Peru, where Wari held the summit of Cerro Baúl while Tiwanaku colonists farmed lower in the valley. Archaeologists have found little evidence of war between them there; the two populations seem to have lived side by side for centuries, perhaps with regulated contact and shared feasts.

How the shared imagery spread is still debated. It may reflect an older religious tradition from which both drew, possibly rooted in the earlier Pukara culture of the northern Titicaca basin.

Decline

Around 1000 the Wari state broke up. Construction stopped at Pikillacta and other centres, and some buildings were sealed or burned. The capital was largely abandoned.

The reasons are uncertain. Climate records suggest drier conditions in parts of the Andes around this time, which may have strained farming. Rebellion in the provinces, competition among elites and the cost of maintaining distant outposts are also suggested. Some Wari centres, such as Pikillacta, seem to have been abandoned in an orderly way, with doorways carefully sealed, as if the occupants expected to return. Others show signs of burning.

Pikillacta lies only about 30 km from Cusco, the later Inca capital. Some archaeologists argue that Wari’s long presence in the Cusco region, with its roads, storehouses and administrative traditions, helped prepare the ground for the rise of the Inca state there several centuries later.

The Andes then entered the Late Intermediate Period, a time of regional kingdoms such as Chimor on the north coast.

Rediscovery

The Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello recognised the importance of the Huari ruins in the 1930s. Excavations by Wendell Bennett in 1950 and the pottery studies of Dorothy Menzel in the 1960s defined Wari as a distinct culture. Later research by William Isbell, Katharina Schreiber, Gordon McEwan and Peruvian archaeologists traced its centres across Peru.

Timeline

• c. 600: Wari emerges as a major state in the Ayacucho Basin.
• c. 600–800: Expansion and construction of provincial centres such as Pikillacta and Cerro Baúl.
• c. 650–1000: Use of khipu in Wari administration.
• c. 1000: Collapse of the Wari state and abandonment of the capital.
• 1930s: Julio C. Tello studies the Huari ruins.
• 1950: Wendell Bennett excavates at Huari.
• 2012: Discovery of the unlooted royal tomb at Castillo de Huarmey.

Why it matters

Wari was the first Andean state to govern many different regions through planned centres, roads and records. Its methods of administration, from road-building to khipu, anticipated the Inca Empire, and its history shows that the Inca were heirs to a long tradition of Andean statecraft.