An Evaluation of Earthquake Risk to Inca’s Historical Constructions

Seismic hazard analysis is performed for a representative zone in Peru, including the city of Cusco, the citadel of Machupicchu and the archeological complex of Choquequirao, constituting the area with important Inca heritage. This is considered to be the first step towards developing a rational approach to seismic risk analysis of the Inca’s architectural heritage. An evaluation of the vulnerability of some typical constructions to prevalent earthquake hazard is performed to evaluate the seismic risk of such heritage structures. As a first step to proper understanding of the behavior of these heritage structures, typical elements of Inca construction are studied by simple analytical model to verify basic aspects of structural integrity. The results indicate that peak ground acceleration corresponding to relatively lower hazard may produce failure in these structures or in some structural components like gable walls.