Ransom Room

Ransom Room, Peru, from the street.

The Site of an Emperor's Captivity. When the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro began his pillaging of Peru in 1533, he seized the Inca emperor Atahualpa and held him prisoner in what has come to be known as the Ransom Room.

1998 World Monuments Watch Catalogue

Location

Cajamarca, Peru

Watch Year

1998

A Tragic Chapter in Peru's History

When the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro began his pillaging of Peru in 1533, he seized the Inca emperor Atahualpa and held him prisoner in what has come to be known as the Ransom Room.

In exchange for his freedom, Atahualpa offered to fill the twelve-by-eight-meter room with gold—up to the height of the emperor's outstretched arm. Upon securing the gold, Pizarro had Atahualpa executed anyway.

Interior of the Ransom Room, Peru.

A Need for Preservation

The building, once part of a larger complex, is typical of structures built during the height of the Inca Empire: a rectangular dwelling consisting of polygonal blocks, trapezoidal niches, and a single door. By the time WMF selected the building for the 1998 World Monuments Watch, most of its volcanic stone blocks were fracturing, a condition worsened by pollution and weather fluctuations.

Drainage from neighboring buildings was threatening the foundations, and unbecoming additions—an inappropriate new roof, poor signage, exposed electrical conduits, and raised floors and steps—needed to be removed so that the site could attain a level of dignity worthy of its historical significance. Meanwhile, the structure had become so absorbed by the dense urban center surrounding it that it was hardly noticeable from the street despite its crucial role in Peruvian history.

Entry to the Ramson Room.

Restoring Historic Cajamarca

Following the Ransom Room's Watch listing in 1998, the local office of the National Institute of Culture (currently the Ministry of Culture) prepared conservation plans for the building. The twentieth-century additions that were encumbering the historic structure were removed in the first phase of this project. In 2011, the Municipality of Cajamarca and Asociación Los Andes de Cajamarca (ALAC) agreed to improve the surrounding infrastructure of the Ransom Room as part of a comprehensive plan to restore the Historic Center of Cajamarca.

This effort parallels WMF’s own contribution to the restoration of the Belén Religious Complex, one of the most important historic monuments in Cajamarca. The Historic Center of Cajamarca, including the Ransom Room, was added to Peru's Tentative World Heritage List in 2002.