Pukará de Quitor

Pukará de Quitor is a stone castle in Chile's Atacama Desert that dates back to pre-Columbian times. The ruins, which are adjacent to the desert hamlet of San Pedro de Atacama, are thought to date from the 12th century AD. The Inca dominated the walled city until the 16th century, when the Spanish battled its residents for two decades.

As you approach Quitor, a fort built in the sixteenth century sits atop a hill overlooking the river San Pedro. Pukará de Quitor is an ancient Indian fortification, which dates from more than 700 years.

In 1982, it was designated as a National Monument. It was built before the Incas in the XII century. Built as a fortress with a perimeter defense wall over rocks that create the surface of a hill. The ruins of Pukará de Quitor are situated in a bend of the valley where the San Pedro river, or Ro Grande, runs across an inclined plane of steep mountains.

All of Quitor's structures are made of stone, which is generally edgeless and excavated from the liparita bank on which it sits. The dwellings and their modest associated silos, the defensive enclosures visible in the peripheral and allocated to the same defensive wall, the grain storage enclosures, and the watchtowers cover a total of 160 people and 2,5 hectares.

Location: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile