Sacsayhuaman (Saqsaywaman)
This site is located north of the city of Cusco, at an altitude
of about 3555 meters above sea level, between the districts of Cusco
and San Sebastian, both of them within in the province and
department of Cusco. The archaeological park covers an area of 3094
Hectares and contains more than 200 archaeological sites. Leading to
Saqsaywaman there are two paved roads, one starts in the old and
traditional neighbourhood of San Cristobal and is about 1.5
kilometers long and the other road begins at Avenida Collasuyo and
is 4 kilometers long.
When the
Spanish conquerors arrived first to these lands; they could not
explain themselves how Peruvian "Indians" (ignorant, wild,
without any ability of logical reasoning, one more animal species
according to conquerors) could have built such a greatness. Their
religious fanaticism led them to believe that all that was simply
work of demons or malign spirits. Still today, many people believe
in the inability of ancient Quechuas to create such a wonder, so
they suggest that they were made by beings of some other worlds,
extraterrestrial beings with superior technology that made all that
possible. However, our history and archaeology demonstrate that
those objects of admiration are an undeniable work of the Incas,
Quechuas, Andean people or however pre-Hispanic inhabitants of this
corner of the world would be named.
The imperial city Cusco, meaning ‘navel of the
earth,’ was laid out in the form of a puma, the animal that
symbolized the Inca dynasty. The belly of the puma was the main
plaza, the river Tullumayo formed its spine, and the hill of
Sacsayhuaman its head.
One of the most imposing architectonic complexes
inherited from the Incan Society is Sacsayhuaman, which
because of several of its qualities is considered as one of the best
monuments that mankind built on the earth's surface.
The wall or rampart is the most impressive section,
built with enormous carved limestone boulders, this construction has
a broken line that faces to the main plaza called Chuquipampa which
is a slope with 25 angles and 60 walls.The biggest carved boulder of
the first wall weighs about 70 tons and like all of the other rocks
was brought from a quarry called Sisicancha, three kilometers away
and where there are still rocks that were transported part of the
way. Each wall is made up of 10 fronts with the most important ones
known as Rumipunco, tiupunku, Achuanpunku and Viracocha punku.
Three walls
of Sacsayhuaman - the teeth of the Puma's Head
Originally there were three "walls" or
"bulwarks" which foundations are still seen today; they
are the most spectacular remains of that fabulous building that
according to chroniclers did not have any comparison in the old
world. They are three parallel walls built in different levels with
lime-stones of enormous sizes; zigzagging walls that because of their
appearance it is suggested that they represent the "teeth"
of the puma's head that the complex represented. The boulders used
for the first or lower levels are the biggest; there is one that is
8.5 m high (28 ft.) and weights about 140 metric tons. Those
boulders classify the walls as being of cyclopean or megalithic
architecture. Some authors believe that the three walls represent
the three levels of the Andean Religious World: beginning from the
bottom would be the Ukju Pacha (underground stage), the Kay Pacha
(earth's surface stage) in the middle, and the Hanan Pacha (sky
stage) on the top. Besides; those levels are identified with their
three sacred animals: the Amaru or Mach'aqway (snake), the Puma
(Cougar or Mountain Lion), and the Kuntur (Andean condor). Because
of the zigzagging shape of the walls, some authors suggest that they
represented the Illapa god (thunder, lightning and thunderbolt). It
is possible that all the previous elements related to their religion
would not be excluding, because there are divine interactions, and
as it is known "three" was a key number among Quechuas.
There are no other walls like these. They are
different from Stonehenge, different from the Pyramids of the
Egyptians and the Maya, different from any of the other ancient
monolithic stone-works.
The stones fit so perfectly that no blade of grass
or steel can slide between them. There is no mortar. They often join
in complex and irregular surfaces that would appear to be a
nightmare for the stonemason.
Scientists speculate that the masonry process might
have worked like this: after carving the desired shape out of the
first boulder and fitting it in place, the masons would somehow
suspend the second boulder on scaffolding next to the first one.
They would then have to trace out a pattern on the second boulder in
order to plan the appropriate jigsaw shape that would fit the two
together. In order to make a precise copy of the first boulder's
edges, the masons might have used a straight stick with a hanging plum- bob
to trace its edges and mark off exact points for carving on the
second boulder. After tracing out the pattern, they would sculpt the
stone into shape, pounding it with hand-sized stones to get the
general shape before using finger-size stones for precision sanding.
Admittedly, this entire technique is merely scientific speculation.
The method might have worked in practice but that doesn't mean this
is how the ancient Quechua stonemasons did it.
There is usually neither adornment nor inscription. There is Elfin
whimsy here, as well as raw, primitive and mighty expression.
Most of
these walls are found around Cusco and the Urubamba River Valley in
the Peruvian Andes. There a few scattered examples elsewhere in the
Andes, but almost nowhere else on Earth.
Mostly, the structures are beyond our ken. The how, why and what
simply baffle. Modern man can neither explain nor duplicate. Mysteries like this bring out explanations scholarly, whimsical,
inventive and ridiculous.
What is left from the three walls is made with lime-stones that in
this case were used just in order to built the bases or foundations.
The main walls were made with andesites that are blackish igneous
stones which quarries are in Waqoto on the mountains north of San
Jeronimo, or in Rumiqolqa about 35 Kms. (22 miles) from the city.
Limestones are found in the surroundings of Sacsayhuaman but they are
softer and can not be finely carved as the andesites of the main
walls that were of the "Sedimentary or Imperial Incan"
type. Destruction of Sacsayhuaman lasted about 400 years; since 1536
when Manko Inka began the war against Spaniards and sheltered
himself in this complex. Later the first conquerors started using
its stones to built their houses in the city; subsequently the
city's Church Council ordered in 1559 to take the andesites for the
construction of the Cathedral. Even until 1930, Qosqo's neighbours just paying a small fee could take the amount of stones they wanted
in order to build their houses in the city: four centuries of
destruction using this complex as a quarry by the colonial city's
stone masons.
Sacsayhuaman was supposedly completed around 1508. Depending on
who you listen to, it took a crew of 20,000 to 30,000 men working
for 60 years.
Here is a mystery:
The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega was born around 1530, and raised
in the shadow of these walls. And yet he seems not to have had a
clue as to how Sacsayhuaman was built. He wrote:
"....this fortress surpasses the constructions known as the
seven wonders of the world. For in the case of a long broad wall
like that of Babylon, or the colossus of Rhodes, or the pyramids of
Egypt, or the other monuments, one can see clearly how they were
executed...how, by summoning an immense body of workers and
accumulating more and more material day by day and year by year,
they overcame all difficulties by employing human effort over a long
period. But it is indeed beyond the power of imagination to
understand now these Indians, unacquainted with devices, engines,
and implements, could have cut, dressed, raised, and lowered great
rocks, more like lumps of hills than building stones, and set them
so exactly in their places. For this reason, and because the Indians
were so familiar with demons, the work is attributed to enchantment."
Surely a few of those 20,000 labourers were still around when
Garcilaso was young. Was everyone struck with amnesia? Or is Sacsayhuaman
much older than we've been led to believe?
Archaeologists tell us that the walls of Sacsayhuaman
rose ten feet higher than their remnants. That additional ten feet
of stones supplied the building materials for the cathedrals and
"casas" of the conquistadors.
It is generally conceded that these stones were much smaller than
those megalithic monsters that remain.
Perhaps the upper part of the walls, constructed of small,
regularly-shaped stones was the only part of Sacsayhuaman that was
built by the Incas and "finished in 1508." This could
explain why no one at the time of the conquest seemed to know how
those mighty walls were built.
Garcilaso wrote that on the top of the three "walls" or
"bulwarks" there were three strong towers disposed in a
triangle. The main tower was in the middle and had a circular shape,
it was named as Moyoc Marca (Muyuq Marka), the second one was named
as Paucar Marca, and the third Sacllar Marca (Sallaq Marka); the
last two ones were rectangular.
This is the remaining base of a tower discovered in 1934 at the
top of the Temple of Sacsayhuaman. The Muyuqmarka consists of three
concentric, circular stone walls connected by a series of radial
walls. There are three channels constructed to bring water into what
many scientists consider to be a reservoir. A web-like pattern of 34 lines
intersects at the center and also there is a pattern of concentric
circles that corresponded to the location of the circular walls.
According to Indian legend, Cusco was so barren that
no crops could be grown there. In what is now the center of the
city, there was a lake and a bog. The second Inca, Sinchi Roca, had
the swamp drained and filled with stones and logs until it was firm
enough to support their stone buildings. He also had thousands of
loads of good earth brought in and spread over the land, making the
valley fertile. What could possibly have been the attraction of this
barren, boggy place? Suppose the magnificent lower walls of Sacsayhuaman
were there before Manco Capac came to Cusco. That in
itself would be enough to make the place holy.
The imperial city Cusco, meaning ‘navel of the earth,’ was
laid out in the form of a puma, the animal that symbolized the Inca
dynasty. The belly of the puma was the main plaza, the river
Tullumayo formed its spine, and the hill of Sacsayhuaman its head.
According to one early Spanish chronicler, the Inca emperor
Pachakuti, who had made a pilgrimage to the ancient holy city of
Tiahuanaco, sought to emulate the building perfection he had seen
there in the construction of Cusco’s temples. Cusco, however, was
not really a city in the European sense of the word. Rather it was
an enormous sacred artifact, the dwelling place of the families of
the Inca nobility (common people were not allowed entrance to the
ceremonial nexus), and the center of the Inca cosmos.
In Cusco too, was the most important temple in the Inca empire,
the Coricancha (meaning literally, "the corral of gold").
Dedicated primarily to Viracocha, the creator god, and Inti, the Sun
god, the Coricancha also had subsidiary shrines to the Moon, Venus,
the Pleiades, and various weather deities. Additionally there were a
large number of religious icons of conquered peoples which had been
brought to Cusco, partly in homage and partly as hostage. Reports by
the first Spanish who entered Cusco tell that ceremonies were
conducted around the clock at the Coricancha and that its opulence
was fabulous beyond belief.
Coricancha
- Inca Sun Temple. Finest of Inca stonework.
Golden
Enclosure in Coricancha sheltered
INTI Sun God & Gold Disk (1430-1532).
The wonderfully carved granite walls of
the temple were covered with more than 700 sheets of pure gold,
weighing around two kilograms each; the spacious courtyard was
filled with life-size sculptures of animals and a field of corn, all
fashioned from pure gold; the floors of the temple were themselves
covered in solid gold; and facing the rising sun was a massive
golden image of the sun encrusted with emeralds and other precious
stones. (All of this golden artwork was quickly stolen and melted
down by the Spaniards, who then built a church of Santo Domingo on
foundations of
the temple.)
The Coricancha (sometimes spelled Qoricancha) was also the
centerpiece of a vast astronomical observatory and calendrical
device for precisely calculating precessional movement. Emanating
from the temple were forty lines called seques, running
arrow-straight for hundreds of miles to significant celestial points
on the horizon. Four of these seques represented the four
intercardinal roads to the four quarters of Tawantinsuyu, others
pointed to the equinox and solstice points, and still others to the
heliacal rise positions of different stars and constellations highly
important to the Inca.
Rodadero Hill and the Throne of the Incas
In the outskirts of Cusco, exactly opposite to Sacsayhuaman is
Rodadero, a giant rock hill with numerous stairwells and benches
carved into the rock
Throne of the Inca
The rock is
smooth and rounded, like it was polished by a glacier.
Rodadero hill is made up of diorite rock of igneous
origin, where you can find waterways, carved rocks and what has been
revealed to be the so-called throne of the Incas that is accessed by
a series of precisely carved stairs. Behind this section there are
small labyrinths, tunnels and vaulted niches in the walls.
View the map
of the area around Cusco.
* * *
(heavy equipment of the ancients)
Source: Inca Architecture
[
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/arch499/nonwest/inca/index.html ]
In the Sacred Valley at the site of Ollantaytambo lie many
unfinished blocks of ryholite. They were quarried or collected from
a large rockfall 2.17 miles away across the Urubamba River. How are
the massive stones quarried, transported, dressed and placed? The
lack of written history leaves it up to us to figure out by
observation, comparison, and experimentation.
Quarrying did not occur in the classic sense of hewing raw blocks
from solid cliffs. The Inca stonemasons searched the rockslides for
blocks that would suit their purposes. Often the raw blocks were
partially shaped at the quarry or during transportation. Final
fitting and dressing of the stones occurred at the work site.
Rough shaping of stones was accomplished by two main techniques.
At the base of the ramp leading up to the Sun Temple at
Ollantaytambo lie several blocks abandoned in transit. One shows
small holes pecked into a natural groove into which wedges were
driven to split the stone.
The other method for roughing stones was to simply carve a collar
around the stone until the unwanted portion broke off. This worked
on any area of the stone and didn't rely on a naturally occurring
fissure.
At Ollantaytambo transporting the large blocks required them to
be lowered from the quarry area, hauled across the valley floor,
over the Urubamba River, and up to the Temple site.
As mentioned above there are several large stones lying at the
base of a large ramp which leads up to the Temple. They are called
the "Tired Stones". As evidenced by digging under other stones left
in the fields, getting them to this point was accomplished by
dragging them over a prepared bed of cobblestones. Vincent Lee has
suggested a method for getting them up the steep ramp, turning them
and bringing them to the site.
Vincent Lee developed his method while working on similar
problems on Easter Island. He devised a method that employs a track
of ladder-like sections for the roadbed, a sled to place the stone
on, and levers to move it forward.
Dressing and setting the stones in the precise way that made Inca
construction so famous is also not known from written history. None
of the stonemasons' methods survived to present day. Many theories
have been proposed.
The most well accepted theory about how the Inca dressed the
stones is that they used hammer stones to shape the blocks. Larger
hammer stones were used to rough the blocks and smaller stones were
used to finish and smooth the blocks. Trial experiments has proven
that this is a viable method for reproducing the work of the Inca
stonemasons.
Setting the blocks presents an obvious problem. The stones are
massive with many weighing several tons. Moving and fitting must be
an efficient and simple process to be worthwhile. Many theories
exist about how it was accomplished. Again Vincent Lee has proposed
a reasonable solution that does not rely on space alien
interventions.
Vincent Lee has proposed a process that is not far from the
method used by log workers to build log cabins. Essentially a stone
must be maneuvered into place above its intended placement. Then the
stone may be scribed with the exact form of the placement below and
lowered into place. Mr. Lee has developed a method for holding the
stones in place above their eventual location. His ideas seem to
work well with the small protuberances and concavities seen at the
base of so many stones. His suggested scribe tool has never been
seen though and any minor refitting would be difficult to perform.
Source:
Inca Architecture
More about Inca Stone
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