Sensing Inca Sacredness: The Sounds, Visions, Aromas, and Tastes of the Coricancha

State-sponsored religious performances in the Inca Empire featured an abundance of sensory stimuli. While scholarly efforts have predominantly focused on studying the role that the senses played within Inca religion through documentary evidence, lesser attention has been paid to Inca religious experiences in place. To spatially contextualize and thus better understand the sensorial dimensions of Inca sacredness, I will examine Inca religious performance as it was embodied in the most significant sacred center in the Andes at the time: the Coricancha. Specifically, I will explore how the center functioned as a site in which participants could engage with the sacred through the interplay of sound, sight, smell, and taste. To do this, I will combine ethnohistoric sources with archaeological materials, architectural evidence, and acoustic analysis. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this paper offers an avenue to address the materiality and intangibility of Indigenous religious experiences in the past.