The word 'ceque' (sometimes spelled zeq'e) means 'line' in the Inca language Quechua but in reality it meant many things to the Inca, some of which we probably will never understand. A ceque can mean a pathway or trail, a field boundary, a series of shrines, or a linear expression of kinship.
To the Inca, ceque probably also meant something like 'religious journey' or 'pilgrimage'. Radiating out from the Inca capital city of Cuzco are 42 ceques that seem to represent both political boundaries and pathways dotted with hundreds of small shrines. These paths were an essential part of the royal governance of the Inca empire.
What is a Ceque System?
As reported by the Spanish priest Bernabé Cobo, the ceque system broke Cuzco into four sections, corresponding to the four royal roads (and four political divisions called suyus) of the Inca. Shrines, called huacas in Quechua, were connected by the ceques, so that as you journeyed along the line, you would visit the shrines in order.
Shrines located on the ceques were many things, including natural landscape features (caves, boulders, springs) and man-made features (houses, fountains, canals, palaces). The shrines had a variety of functions and meanings, related to the Inca religion, to political rulers, to family connections, to astronomical sighting points, and to land boundaries or irrigation system markers.
Physical, Social--or Both
Some of the ceques were straight lines, while others zigzag their way across the landscape. They never cross one another, although often they run parallel to one another. The Inca quipu system--a way of storing information by using knots on connected strings--may have also been maps of ceques.
Interestingly, there's some debate about whether there were physical paths connecting the shrines. If there were, they were quite informal, and the most important part of the ceques was the huacas along the way.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Inca Empire, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Bauer, BS. 1998. The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System. The University of Texas Press; Austin.
Bauer BS. 1992. Ritual Pathways of the Inca: An Analysis of the Collasuyu Ceques in Cuzco. Latin American Antiquity 3(3):183-205.
Christie JJ. 2008. Inka Roads, Lines, and Rock Shrines: A Discussion of the Contexts of Trail Markers. Journal of Anthropological Research 64(1):41-66.
Christie JJ. 2012. A New Look at Q'enqo as a Model of Inka Visual Representation, Reproduction, and Spatial Structure. Ethnohistory 59(3):597-630.
