roads and bridges: Asia and the Pacific 871 mal routes were verified by analyzing cross sections through older roadbeds as well as by taking note of related ancient structures, canals, and walls Over the span of 2,500 years roads in the Moche valley were cleared and graded, with roads cut through small hills and with ramps that were stonefaced Along certain sections the roads were curbed with debris from road construction, or they were walled Early in the history of this area the Cupisnique (ca 500 b.c.e.) had built roads exclusively with walls It would be another 1,500 years before another group, the Chimú, would construct roads with walls or curbs The Chimú chose to build walls of stone-faced rubble and to raise the roadbeds when they passed through irrigated fields These two methods of road-building helped keep people on the road and water from washing away the roadbeds All Chimú roads at Chan Chan were elevated causeways with walls As in other regions of the Americas, the development of chiefdoms in Peru led to the construction of formal roads as manifestations of power There is evidence from the Spanish colonial period that indigenous rulers sent engineers to lay out roads before they were constructed The ability of a ruler to designate the placement of roadways indicates that these roads established control over the landscape and that their construction required command of a large workforce The Spanish conquerors were awed by the system of royal roads built by the Inca over very difficult mountainous terrain The royal roads revealed the power of the Inca, for they confronted and defied natural barriers Roads traversed snow-covered sierras and were cut through rock The construction of the roads included suspension bridges over rivers, stairways carved into the sides of mountains, and deep ravines filled with solid masonry Nothing seemed to have deterred these Inca road-builders In Mexico the Spaniards were amazed by the causeways that the Aztec had built across the lake into the center of their capital city, Tenochtitlán On an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, Tenochtitlán was traversed by canals, used as roadways by the Aztec Whereas most of these roads have been discovered through photography, remote sensing, and archaeological research, the depiction of roadways in the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, an Indian map on a large textile hanging, identifies the route taken by the Spaniards and their allies, the Quauhquecholteca, from the Tlaxcala-Puebla region in central Mexico as they made their way to present-day Guatemala The roads in the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan provide a narrative guide and a temporal context The Lienzo shows direction, with footprints and hoofprints The mapmaker’s artistry allows the identification of actual roads and paths that existed after the conquest and shows how these roads connected cities, villages, and settlements The roads were probably major routes before the ar- rival of the Spaniards Many of the roads were wide enough to allow the passage of large numbers of soldiers Combined with the archaeological record and modern visualizing techniques, the study of the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan and other similar documents and maps could enlarge understanding and appreciation for the accomplishments of the various peoples throughout the Americas Asia and the Pacific by I licia Sprey Roads and bridges formed an integral part of statecraft and defense, and only secondarily were they part of the growing system of trade and transportation of goods and people that existed in premodern Asia They were the link between coastal ports of trade and the populations living inland, who were both providers of raw materials sought by other groups and consumers of goods brought to them and available only through merchants who worked in the ports The presence of roads and bridges in a region and the state of their repair served as a measure of the stability of the local and regional governments The major roads and bridges in Asia and South Asia began not as a means of increasing commercial trade or of strengthening the economy of a region but as a means by which military forces could move quickly from one area to another The Chinese forces, which invaded Vietnam early in the third century c.e and held it for almost 800 years, built many stone bridges in the northern region of the kingdom that crossed its many rivers and helped maintain authority over the conquered people In 1428, as a sign of Vietnam’s newly won independence from Chinese authority and as a means of deterring future invasions, the Vietnamese destroyed many of these bridges, which had become symbolic of Chinese dominance Although the Venetian traveler Marco Polo (1254–1324) wrote of seeing more than a thousand bridges made of wood, stone, and iron in and around Hangzhou, on the eastern coast of China, the numbers of Asian cities with bridges were few, and the kinds found in the region varied widely Around 605 a bridge with segmented arches under its flat roadbed was built in Hebei Province, near Beijing, out of stone with iron joints, which gave it both the stability and flexibility to handle the heavy loads carried across its expanse A similar bridge was built in what is now Cambodia under the Khmer King Jayavarman VII (r 1181–ca 1215) Still in existence, it spans almost 250 feet and is made of over 20 stone arches that support it The most common form of bridge built over rivers, whose locations had strategic and economic importance, was the lift bridge or drawbridge These bridges were built in such a way as to allow the middle section to be lifted or tilted upward