When the European conquistadors set foot on the coast of South America, they were discouraged by what they saw. The "wild pagans" who did not know the wheel had huge cities made of gigantic, well-cut stones. The "civilized" conquerors believed that these amazing structures were built by demons. One of these "demonic" structures was for them and the strange-looking fortification of Sacsayhuaman on the outskirts of the ancient capital of the Incas of Cuzco.
The ancient Inca city of Cuzco was built in an amazing way. If you look at it from the sky, then in layout it looks like the outline of a puma. Even some districts of Cusco retained the memory of the divine beast in their names: Pu-makchuku (“cougar's tail”), Gu-akaipata (“cougar's body”). Citadel Sacsayhuaman can be considered the "head" of the legendary animal. Before its construction, the "cougar" -Cusco was apparently headless.
Protection for the capital
However, translated from Indian languages, the word "Sacsayhuaman" means anything, just not a part of the cougar: "motley hawk", "royal eagle", "well-fed falcon" … In one of the dialects, such a meaning as "marble head" … Perhaps the legendary cougar in the representation of the Indians looked like a cat with a bird's head. But be that as it may, for the city of Cuzco, the citadel of Sacsayhuaman was very important. It was built to protect the capital from enemy raids. And not in the best times for the Incas.
Construction began under the mighty 10th Inca Tupac Yupanqui, or under his father Pachacuteca Yupanqui, somewhere in the 15th century, just before the arrival of the Europeans. By that time, the Inca empire was huge. She occupied the territory of modern Peru, Ecuador and Chile. The capital of the empire needed good protection. In the event that the ruin of Cuzco was inevitable, the citadel was supposed to save not only the Inca himself and his soldiers, but all the townspeople.
On the hill adjacent to the capital, a huge round tower, trimmed with gold and silver, was erected for the Inca himself. And two smaller square towers - for soldiers and townspeople. However, even the "smaller" towers were five stories high! In addition to the three towers, Sacsayhuaman had a water reservoir fed from a spring and three stone walls. They were located taking into account the slope of the hill - in a row, one above the other.
The last defensive line was erected in the first quarter of the 16th century, under the 11th Inca, Huayne Kapaka. But the construction was never completed - the Inca and his entire army died from diseases brought in by the conquistadors. And in 1534, Cuzco was captured and plundered. The valiant conquerors, who feared the uprising of the peoples they conquered, demolished all the towers of Sacsayhuaman. But they could not destroy its walls. And who needed these walls now if they no longer protected anything?
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It seems that the time of the construction of Sacsayhuaman is extremely clear. But the sight of these fortress walls is puzzling. They are built of such heavy stone blocks that a modern researcher can only shrug his shoulders - how did the Incas manage to create their battlements out of them?
Fortress named after god
The Peruvian historian Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, who lived less than 100 years after the start of the epoch-making construction, exclaimed: “Anyone who has not seen it himself will not believe that something can be built from such stones; they inspire terror to the one who examines them carefully. The walls are stacked using the so-called polygonal masonry - that is, the blocks are not hewn into even bricks, but fit to each other along curved lines, without any mortar. The gap between them is such that not even a knife blade can be inserted into it. The blocks vary greatly in size, there is no system in their selection. But the largest stones were used to strengthen the structure in the area of the jagged protrusions. Some of them reach nine meters in height and weigh up to 200 tons. The jagged protrusions, which historians have called bastions, in each row of stone walls, 21.
The first row of masonry was named Tiu-Punku ("Sandy Gate"). This wall is indeed among the sand. The second row is called Akavana-Punku. According to legend, that was the name of the architect who created the citadel. The third row bears the name of the god who created the world in Inca mythology - Viracocha-Punku. Some researchers believe that the special shape of the walls is connected precisely with the myths about the creation of the world and symbolizes the three toothed lightning of the creator god. Others are looking for greater functionality in the purpose of walls.
In a European view, the rows of walls are not so high and insurmountable. Compared to the impregnable fortresses of the Old World, we can say that for trained warriors to overcome three rows of such obstacles, albeit desperately defended, is a fairly simple task. Although for the Incas, who did not know firearms and artillery, the citadel probably seemed impregnable. Moreover, although the walls ran in rows, they still had through passages, which, as scientists think, were blocked by mechanisms that lowered the hanging stones.
The walls stretched around the hill for 360 meters. Moreover, on the side where the hill was steeper, they were not built so thoroughly. And from the side, where the slope was flatter, and the masonry was more powerful, and the walls were higher.
Plasticine stone
How did the Indians deliver, process and stack these giant stone blocks? Conquistadors and missionaries who saw the backward technologies of the natives, of course, blamed everything on demons and evil spirits. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, in whose veins the blood of Indians and Spaniards flowed, referred to the ancient gods and magic. He wrote that the quarry where the stone was quarried was 23 miles from the construction site. The Indians had no carts, no oxen, no iron tools for cutting stone. And even if they had all this, then there are neither such carts on which one can transport such huge blocks, nor such oxen that could move them.
As an example, he cited such an episode from contemporary history. At the time of the conquistadors, when the conquerors decided to fortify their own citadel, the Indians were forced to drag and lift not the largest stone from the old building to the top of the hill. The block was dragged by 20 thousand people, but the Indians did not cope with the task. When the stone began to be lifted, it escaped from the mount and crushed 3,000 workers. Inca Garcilaso's contemporaries no longer knew how to manage the delivery of stones for construction. But did their grandfathers and great-grandfathers know how to build from such stones?
In the Indian legends about the walls of Sacsayhuaman, it is clearly stated that the Incas themselves did not build them. But what about the official version of history and the exact time when these walls were erected? This question can be answered by the results of the 2012 expedition organized by Peruvian and Russian researchers. It turned out that the masonry of giant stones is much older than the Inca civilization - in other words, they built their protective walls on an ancient foundation. So, most likely, in the XV-XVI centuries, the Incas simply renovated what was once not built by them.
According to the supporters of this theory, these walls were built not of simple, but of special limestone. It supposedly can only form at very high temperatures. Moreover, it is a so-called "plasticine mass". That is, the builders of the walls of Sacsayhuaman somehow used such "hot stones", peeled off the softened layers from them, gave them the necessary shape, laid them on top of one another and waited for hardening. In some places of the citadel, it seems, even "plasticine stones" that have not received processing have been preserved, similar to frozen concrete.
The main relic of Sacsayhuaman - "the throne of Viracocha" - is located on a comb-like rock, the surface of which also very much resembles a stone softened and then frozen. Another interesting detail was revealed: the Inca fortress may not be quite a fortress. Many researchers believe that Sacsayhuaman was a temple complex and, in addition to the above-ground part, also had an underground one. Archaeologists have found several underground passages lined with tightly fitted stones. According to legend, there were once the treasures of the Great Inca, his arsenal. Shelters were also equipped there during the wars. And underground passages connected all the main buildings of Cusco with the distant Sacsayhuaman.
Nikolay KOTOMKIN