Todos los mitos de la antigüedad sobre riquezas fabulosas y las alucinaciones de la Edad Media sobre islas Afortunadas o regiones de Utopía y ensueño y todas las recetas arcanas y la experiencia mágico-religiosa de los alquimistas medievales para trasmutar los metales en oro, se esfuman y languidecen en el siglo XVI, ante el hallazgo de asombro del Imperio de los Incas y de los tesoros del Koricancha. El tesoro de los Incas del Cuzco excede al de todos los botines de la historia: al saco de Génova, al de Milán, al de Roma, al de la prisión del rey Francisco o al despojo de Moctezuma, dirá maravillado el cronista de los Reyes Católicos, porque "el rey Atahualpa tan riquísimo e aquellas gentes e provincias de quien se espera y han sacado otros millones muchos de oro, hacen que parezca poco todo lo que en le mundo se ha sabido o se ha llamado rico".
Nearly five centuries ago, the most fabulous treasure within the KORICANCHA, or the TEMPLE OF THE SUN OF THE INCAS, vanished before the Spanish conquistadors of Peru. Chronicler Cieza de León refers to this in one of his writings: "The splendid wealth that was stored there originated in the time of Inca Yupanqui, who, seeing himself so rich and powerful, decided to ennoble the House of the Sun, or Intihuasi, also called Qoricancha, which means 'enclosure of gold'... They had a garden made of fine gold, where maize fields were artificially planted with the same precious metal, as well as life-sized figures of shepherds and their flocks, slings and staffs, jars of gold, silver, and emeralds, along with cups, pots, and vessels. The walls were covered with sheets of gold and silver. In short, it was one of the richest temples in the world.” All this wealth was securely hidden through secret tunnels beneath Cusco in the labyrinths of Saqsaywaman. Many chroniclers and researchers, such as Garcilaso de la Vega, Cieza de León, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Martín de Morúa, Sarmiento de Gamboa, Ernst Middendorf, William Montgomery McGovern, and even Alexander Von Humboldt, have referenced this treasure. Writing a century and a half ago, and therefore much closer to the events than we can be today, two explorers (M.A. Ribero and J.J. von Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities) described the situation as follows: "In the second half of the 16th century, in the short span of twenty-five years, the Spaniards exported from Peru to the motherland more than 400 million ducats of gold and silver, and we can be sure that nine-tenths of that amount were simply the loot obtained by the conquerors. In this calculation, we do not take into account the immense masses of precious metals buried by the natives to protect them from the greed of foreign invaders, nor the famous gold chain that the Inca Huayna Capac had made to celebrate the birth of his firstborn, Inti Cusi Huallapa Huáscar, which is said to have been thrown into the Urcos lake. (It was said that the chain measured 210 meters in length and had the thickness of a man's wrist). Nor do we include the 11,000 llamas loaded with gold dust inside precious vessels of the same metal, with which Atahualpa wanted to buy his life and freedom, and whose guides buried in the Puna as soon as they learned of the new punishment that had treacherously befallen their beloved monarch.” In an attempt to respond to the enigma, Ribero and Tschudi wrote: "Even though gold was the most valued metal by the Peruvians, it was also the one they possessed in the greatest quantity. Comparing its abundance in the time of the Incas with the volume that the Spaniards have been able to extract from mines and rivers over four centuries, it becomes evident that the Indians knew veins of this precious metal that the conquerors and their descendants never managed to discover.” Both authors also predicted that "a day will come when Peru will unveil from its bosom the veil that now covers riches more marvelous than those currently offered by California." And when the discoveries of the late past century spread a new gold fever across Europe, many mining experts came to think that the so-called "mother lode," ultimately the origin of all the gold on Earth, would appear in Peru. The possibility that in a time long before the Incas, someone had access to gold in its underground veins (and in places that the Incas did not reveal or perhaps did not know) remains a plausible explanation for those accumulated treasures.
Francisco Pizarro sent Pedro de Morguer, Martín Bueno, and Juan Agustín de Zárate to dismantle the Inca palaces and remove anything of value from them. With the help of the Cañari Indians, they tore off five hundred to seven hundred sheets of gold, each a finger thick, from the walls of the temples. Nevertheless, not everything was taken and sent to Spain; the Incas managed to hide part of the golden and silver garden of Koricancha somewhere in the city, as well as the gold statues of their Inca sovereigns in the Solar Hall and the silver statues of their Colla wives in the Lunar Hall. It was precisely then that speculation began about the idea that the most valuable and sacred pieces of Inca gold had ended up in underground rooms accessed through long secret tunnels.
FELIPE DE POMARES - HISTORY OF CARLOS INCA AND MARIA ESQUIVEL
According to the chronicler Felipe de Pomares in the early 17th century, a significant contribution to this legend came from an Inca prince named Carlos Inca, the grandson of Cristóbal Paullu Inca and a direct descendant of the powerful Huayna Capac. He confessed to his wife, a Spanish woman named María Esquivel, that despite the poverty to which the conquerors had reduced him, he was richer than all the overseas invaders combined and the guardian of the most valuable treasure on Earth. It is said that after the marriage was celebrated, she sought the supposed fortune but could not find it. The poor Indian, constantly besieged by his wife, who despised and insulted him for his poverty and situation, decided to show María Esquivel how wealthy he was and thus put an end to such unfair contempt. He blindfolded his wife and, sometimes walking and sometimes carried, took her through alleys and basements. When they reached a spacious underground area, he removed the blindfold, and she could behold "the most fabulous treasure imaginable. Thousands of golden objects shimmered temptingly in the light of the lantern," she would later recount. "There were statues of the Incas, all made of gold and the size of a twelve-year-old child. There were also vessels, plates, and every imaginable piece of tableware, all made of gold. And so on, until completing a wealth like no other.” Having satisfied the Indian's pride, he blindfolded his wife again, not allowing her to take anything. Blind with rage, she reported what had happened to the authorities. As hiding treasures that indeed belonged to the Crown of Spain was a grave offense, the capture of the Indian was ordered, hoping that under torture, he would confess the location where he hid such wealth. All efforts were in vain; the descendant of the Incas had disappeared from Cusco towards the last secret refuge of his ancestors in the mountains of Vilcabamba, and with him, the possibility of finding the treasure.
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ DE GÓMARA (1511-1566)
Gómara asserts that the beauty of the Koricancha was so profound due to the abundance of gold within it that, with the impact of the sunrise illuminating the building, it radiated splendor and beauty into the Cusco sky, granting it a true aura of sanctity.
CHRONICLER PEDRO PIZARRO (1515-1570)
During the Inca Empire, when Manco II sought to seize the throne, there was a noble Indian named Atausupa, who also aspired to the throne as a direct descendant of the Inca. On one occasion, Atausupa told Pizarro that if he made him Emperor, he would reveal the location of 1000 loads of gold and silver behind the Fortress of Cusco. Later, the Indian was killed by order of Pizarro and at the hands of Almagro without definitively determining the location. Shortly after, Manco II promised Pizarro an even more fabulous fortune if he became Emperor. To demonstrate the amount of gold he referred to, Manco II took a grain of corn from a sack, threw it to the ground, and said: "The treasure that Atausupa offered is like this, but I know a place where the bulk of the treasure is." The location of the treasure was never revealed.
FATHER ACOSTA (1540-1600)
Father Acosta, with his scientific severity and rationalist gift, tells us in his "Natural and Moral History of the Indies": "And among all the parts of the Indies, the Kingdoms of Peru are the ones most abundant in metals, especially silver, gold, and mercury."
GARCILASO DE LA VEGA (1539-1616)
The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, at the end of the 16th century, describes, "the walls were covered from top to bottom with sheets and planks of gold. On the wall at the end, which we call the main altar, they had placed the figure of the sun, made of a sheet of gold, twice as thick as the other sheets that covered the walls. The figure was made with its face in the round, and with its rays and flames of fire, all in one piece, no more and no less than painters depict it. It was so large that it covered the entire end wall of the temple from wall to wall." It also had an artificial garden with an area of one and a half hectares: "That orchard that now serves the convent of vegetables was, in the time of the Incas, a garden of gold and silver, .... where there were many herbs and flowers of various kinds, many smaller plants, many larger trees, many small and large animals, wild and domestic, and creeping savannahs like snakes, lizards, and snails, butterflies, birds, and other larger birds of the air, each thing placed in the place that most fittingly imitated nature. There was a large cornfield and the seed they call quinoa and other legumes and fruit trees, all with their fruit made entirely of gold and silver, imitating nature. There were also in the house piles of firewood made of gold and silver, as there were in the royal house; there were also large figures of men and women and children, molded from the same, and many granaries and troughs, called pirua, all for the ornament and greater majesty of the house of their God, the Sun. As every year, on all the main festivals held for him, they presented so much silver and gold, they used it all to adorn their house, inventing new grandeur every day, because all the silversmiths dedicated to the service of the Sun understood nothing else but making and remaking the said things. They made an infinite number of utensils; the temple had everything for its service, even pots, jugs, jars, and large jars. In short, there was nothing in that house that did not serve, and everything was made of gold and silver, even the tools used for cleaning the gardens. Hence, with much reason and propriety, they called the temple of the Sun and the whole house KORICANCHA, which means the neighborhood of gold." These and other attributes clearly indicated to the first Spaniards arriving in Cusco that this enclosure was the center of Tawantinsuyo or the Inca Empire.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1539-1616)
Sir Walter Raleigh, glimpsing the Spanish El Dorado from his thwarted Saxon foothold in Guyana, South America, would write: "Ipso enim facto deprehendimus Regem Hispanum, propter divitias et Opes Regni Peru omnibus totis Europae Monarchis Principibusque longue superiorem esse." – "By this fact, we understand that the King of Spain, due to the abundance and riches of the kingdom of Peru, is far superior to all the kings and princes of Europe."
MATEO GARCÍA PUMAKAHUA (1740-1815)
In 1814, the last news of the treasure appears thanks to Mateo García Pumakahua, a descendant of the Incas and a conspirator at that time in a general uprising against the royal armies still stationed in Peru. While finalizing the details of his coup, which, by the way, failed miserably the following year, he was forced to show Colonel Domingo Luis Astete part of the Inca treasure and convince him that the independence cause would have abundant financial funds to consummate a revolution. He led him blindfolded through the Plaza de Armas in Cusco, next to a stream (possibly Choquechaca), along a secret stepped path to the underground of the city. Once there, with his eyes wide open, Astete could behold riches that left him astonished: huge puma sculptures made of champi with emerald eyes, bricks of gold and silver, life-size statues made of solid silver and gold, gold dust in vessels, piles of dazzling jewels, and pieces of incalculable value. He was given only enough to equip his men and was returned to the starting point. Just one detail from that moment: while Astete was contemplating the treasure, he distinctly heard the cathedral clock striking nine at night.
FRIEDRICH WILHELM ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
In 1808, the renowned Prussian geographer, naturalist, and explorer, Alexander Von Humboldt, in his book 'Views of Nature' (Ansichten der Natur), recounts the following narrative he obtained while in Cusco: "The son of the chieftain Astorpilca, an interesting and amiable 17-year-old, guided us to the ruins of the ancient palace. Living in great poverty, his imagination was filled with images of underground splendor and the treasures of gold that, he assured us, were hidden beneath the mounds of waste we were treading upon. He told us that one of his ancestors, covering the eyes of his wife, and then, navigating through intricate passages, led her to the underground gardens of the Inca. There, the woman beheld the finest creations of the purest gold, trees with leaves and fruits, and birds hanging from their branches. Among other things, she saw the golden throne of Atahualpa. [...] Astorpilca's son assured me that underground, near the right of the site where I stood, there was a large Datura tree, or Guanto, full of flowers, exquisitely made of gold and golden plates, and that its branches extended towards the Inca's seat. The morbid faith with which the young man asserted his beliefs in this fabulous story made a profound and melancholic impression on me."
EPHRAIM GEORGE SQUIER (1893-1895) A Journey Through Inca Lands
In a manuscript held at the British Museum, of which I possess a copy, I find a curious story related to the alleged treasures of Sacsayhuamán, narrated by Felipe de Pomares, who says: "It is well-known and accepted that in this Fortress of Cusco, there is a secret vault where an enormous treasure is located, as all the statues of the Incas, carved in gold, were placed there. And there still lives a lady who has been in this vault, called Doña María de Esquivel, the wife of the last Inca, and I have heard her describe how she came to go there and what she saw. It happened like this: This lady had married Don Carlos Inca, who lacked the means to maintain the position of a great person that he truly was, and Doña María neglected him - the chronicler says something worse - because she had been deceitfully led to marry a poor Indian under the pretext that he was a great lord and Inca. So much did she repeat this reproach that one night, Don Carlos said to her, 'Do you want to know if I am the miserable, indigent, and unfortunate person you say I am? Do you want to know if I am poor or rich? If so, come with me, and you will see that I possess more riches than any lord or king in the universe.' ... And Doña María, overcome by curiosity, consented to have her eyes blindfolded - something unlikely for a woman - and to follow her indignant husband. He made her take several turns and then took her by the hand and led her down to a room, where he removed the blindfold, and she found herself surrounded by unlimited treasures. In niches on the walls, there were many statues of all the Incas, the size of twelve-year-old youths, all made of the finest gold, in addition to countless vessels of gold and silver and blocks of these metals, in total a wealth that convinced the lady that the greatest treasure in the world was there." The chronicler does not tell us how she behaved afterward with her owner and lord; and as to whether she managed through flattery to obtain a statue of her parents or a block of gold from Don Carlos Inca, unfortunately, he leaves us in the dark. But the chronicler does tell us that one should not assume that an author of such judgment and character as Felipe de Pomares would tell a falsehood, even if it were possible for a lady with the character and recognized virtue of Doña María de Esquivel to be guilty of such a thing.