THE HOUSES OF THE SOUL.

Veneration of the dead was an integral part of the Andean civilization, and the huge "chullpas at Sillustani, Puno are proof of this mysterious veneration practiced by the pre-Inca and Inca period.
The department of Puno, is fundamentally a High Plateau (Altiplano) located in the South East corner of Peru. Its landscape surprises because of the vast Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable Lake in the World, and the snow-capped peaks flanking its Eastern side.
Puno city is located on the shores of the Lake Titicaca and only 126 km from the frontier with Bolivia, at 3,827m above sea level.
Puno has been to origin and craddle of very big pre-Inca civilizations and of the mythical legend of Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo who emerged from the waters of the Lake Titicaca and went to Cuzco to found the capital of the Inca empire. The Collao Plateau and around Lake Titicaca were the sites in which the following pre-Inca civilizations were born: Pucara, Tiahuanco, Collas, and Lupacas.
Puno is also the melting pot of the 2 most important Andean languages, the Aymara from the South and the Quechua from the North. This incredible mixture has made Puno to gain the title of "Folkloric Capital of Peru." The title is lived up well with the huge number and variety of traditional festivities, dances, and music.
Sillustani, the site that hosts the famous soul houses (Chullpas), great circular towers built to store the funeral remains of the ancient inhabitants of Collao, is about 45 minutes drive, 34 km North of Puno city, on the shores of the Umayo Lagoon. The Lagoon is surrounded by areas of marshland and pasture, which flood on a seasonal basis, however, it loses most of its water through evaporation under the fierce sun and strong winds of the dry High Plateau (Altiplano). It has a maximum depth of 27 meters and connects to Lake Titicaca via Illpa River.
Many of the soul houses (Chullpas) at Sillustani show characteristics similar to the ones found throughout the entire South Central Andes. The insides of the houses were built to hold entire groups of people. Corps were not intentionally mummified, but in the dry environment created by the closed tomb, they survived for centuries. Most of the corps inside the houses indicate burial in a fetal position. The only openings that the soul houses have face East, where it was believed the Sun was reborn by Mother Earth each day.
The architecture of the site is remarkable complex compared with the typical Inca architecture, who used stones of varying shapes, the Colla only used even rectangular edges. Some soul houses are more than 12 meters high. At their bases they are smaller than the top parts. Superb construction techniques were applied in their internal false vault and lateral rock interlocking. Typical Inca materials combine perfectly with Colla elements. The ones known as Lagarto (Crocodile) and Inti-Watana are the most prominent.