Everyone knows about the Inca empire. Thousands of books have been written about her, and the history of this largest state in the New World is considered well known. However, the number of questions and mysteries related to the culture of this people is much more than it seems in the official history.
According to modern concepts, the Inca Empire, as a state formation, did not last long - about a hundred years. But in such a short period of time, the Incas managed to capture almost the entire coastal and mountainous part of South America. Their dominion, by the time the Spaniards arrived here, had spread from Ecuador to central Chile. The royal road of the Incas, which connected the city of Kitou in the north of the empire and the Chilean fortress on the Maule River, had a length of about 6,000 km. Throughout the territory, the Incas built their post stations, fortresses and small settlements for settlers. Inca architecture is one of the most notable features of their culture.
It is believed that the Inca building tools were extremely simple. Thanks to archaeological research, it is known that the Inca's measuring instruments had the simplest plumb line and level, which was a flat-bottomed vessel filled with water. Stone processing was carried out either with stone chisels, or using copper and bronze tools. At the same time, the buildings preserved in Peru demonstrate the highest level of skill in stone processing.
One of the most famous monuments of Inca architecture is the Sacsayhuaman complex. It is located on a high hill two kilometers north of the Inca capital of Cuzco. The central part of the complex consists of three zigzag walls, located one above the other and bordering the hillside. The walls are built of huge, carefully crafted granite blocks. The largest of the blocks weighs 350 tons at a height of 8.5 meters. The blocks of the lower wall, with a total length of 350 m, are on average 2-3 m high and weigh tens of tons each. The blocks have different shapes, but at the same time they fit together with such precision that the knife blade does not pass through the joints. No mortar was used, but an interesting technology was used, which today is called "polygonal". Some corners of the blocks have curly cutouts,corresponding to the notches of the corner of the adjacent block, thus achieving maximum adhesion between the blocks. But how did people, using the simplest mechanisms, manage to fit multi-ton blocks without any gaps between the figuratively cut (in granite!) Corners? It is also noteworthy that the blocks of the bastions protruding from the wall are rounded. That is, for the ancient builders it was not a problem to cut off the edges of three to four meter monoliths just in order to give them a rounded shape. And all these works were performed using the simplest stone and bronze tools? It is characteristic that it is impossible to find traces of any tools on any of the blocks; all the blocks are carefully polished. It is difficult to imagine the volume of labor costs for processing such a number of granite monoliths (and there are more than 700 of them only in the lower wall). The next two walls of Sacsayhuaman are made of smaller blocks of granite (usually half a meter high), but they are also meticulously polished and polished using polygonal techniques.
The Spaniards, who captured Cusco in November 1533, were simply amazed at the grandeur of Sacsayhuaman's buildings. One of the most famous chroniclers of that time, the Inca Garcellaso de la Vega wrote that "these buildings were not erected by people, but by demons." It is not surprising that the Spaniards, seeing such walls, called Sacsayhuaman a "fortress". Moreover, in 1536 the bloody battle that took place here, in which 1,500 Indians died, decided the fate of the Inca uprising and, in fact, marked the collapse of the Inca empire.
However, Sacsayhuaman was not a fortress. First of all, the main hill on this monument is surrounded by Cyclopean walls on one side only. The other side of the hill is quite steep and inaccessible, but its ends are flat and do not have any protective fortifications. At the top of the hill during the Inca time there were three towers, the main of which was almost 20 meters high. Today, archaeologists have excavated the foundation of one of them. But these towers were also not defensive. Although during the battle for Cuzco and Sacsayhuaman in 1536, it was the towers that were the stronghold of the resistance of the Indians. However, under the Incas, the towers served primarily as storehouses and dwellings. It is also possible that they were used for astronomical observations.
What did this huge complex serve if it was not a fortress? A number of Spanish chroniclers, even those who in their books call Sacsayhuaman a "fortress", mentioned that it served as "the real House of the Sun." Indeed, today there is no longer any doubt that it was the largest religious center of the Inca Empire. Currently, the site of the monument hosts the annual celebration of one of the most important Inca holidays - Inti Raymi - the holiday of the Sun, celebrated on the day of the summer solstice. Before the Conquest, Sacsayhuaman was all built up with temples, dwellings of priests, storehouses. After the capture of Cuzco, the Spaniards destroyed the vast majority of buildings, using stone to build their already Europeanized city. Only the multi-ton monoliths of the Cyclopean walls remained, which the Spaniards could not disassemble or destroy.
In official science, half a century ago, thanks to the efforts of American scientists, the point of view was established that all cyclopean buildings were built by the Incas. Inca history claims that Cusco was founded by the first Inca Manco Capac. But archaeological research in the same Sacsayhuaman showed that the monument was inhabited long before the Incas. Indeed, the Inca state arose around 1200. Historians know only 13 Inca rulers. But the volume of construction work attributed to the Incas is at least ten times higher than the volume of construction performed by the ancient Egyptians over three thousand years of their history! Spanish chroniclers attribute the construction of Sacsayhuaman to the ninth ruler of the Inca Pachacuti, who is considered the founder of the Inca Empire. However, different authors give different figures regarding the construction time of the complex - from five to seventy years. Most likely, this information was also gleaned by the chroniclers from the official history of the Incas, although the fact that the Incas undoubtedly erected temples and other buildings in Sacsayhuaman is unlikely to raise doubts. But was everything here built by them?
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Today, a number of researchers believe that the cyclopean buildings in Peru were made by some much more ancient "megalithic civilization". The Incas, who came here last, only appropriated the heritage of the ancients, adapting their building traditions. Indeed, it is unlikely that a sane person would think that the Kremlin wall was built by the Bolsheviks only because the ashes of prominent figures of the Soviet state were buried in it.
In early 2003, the Spanish archaeologist Anselm Pi Ramba discovered an underground tunnel connecting Center Cusco and Sacsayhuaman. The tunnel is laid at a depth of about one hundred meters below the surface and has a length of 2 kilometers! Even Garcillaso de la Vega wrote about a whole underground city near Cuzco, which consisted of a labyrinth of galleries, secret temples and vaults. Did the Incas manage to build this, too, in just three hundred years? We are just beginning to get closer to solving the secrets of ancient civilizations and most of the discoveries are still ahead of us.
Ollantaytambo is located 40 km northwest of Cusco, another extremely remarkable monument of Native American architecture. "Tambo" (in Quechua language - "tampu") means "post office". The Incas, like any other ancient empire that established a system of road communications, had a whole network of tampa located on roads at a distance of 12-18 km from each other. Tampa were state institutions and their most important function was to support the royal messengers - chaski, who ensured the most effective information exchange in the Inca empire. Nevertheless, Tampa often grew into large settlements and even cities. That was Ollantaytambo. The city is located in the upper reaches of the Urubamba River at an altitude of 3500 m above sea level at the beginning of the so-called Sacred Valley of the Incas, which led to Machu Picchu. Until now, the monument has been very well preserved. The modern village is built on the foundations of Inca houses and retains the pre-Spanish street layout. But this is not the main attraction of Ollantaytambo. A temple complex is located near the settlement on a high rock ledge of the nearest mountain. It is also called a fortress, although it is not. The Incas did not build any consolidated settlements at all, i.e. enclosed by a defensive wall with towers or bastions. Living in a mountainous country, they used the inaccessible hills, rocks and mountain slopes to establish their key points. The Incas did not build any consolidated settlements at all, i.e. enclosed by a defensive wall with towers or bastions. Living in a mountainous country, they used the inaccessible hills, rocks and mountain slopes to establish their key points. The Incas did not build any consolidated settlements at all, i.e. enclosed by a defensive wall with towers or bastions. Living in a mountainous country, they used the inaccessible hills, rocks and mountain slopes to establish their key points.
Ollantaytambo is located just on such a rocky promontory, rising above the valley to a height of about 60 m. The only narrow stone staircase leads to the top, on the side of which there is a cascade of 17 agricultural terraces. The Spanish tried once in 1536 to capture Ollantaytambo, but to no avail. The detachment of Hernando Pissaro was forced to retreat in a hurry, barely avoiding death.
At the top of the rock are the remains of a cyclopean structure, which without any reason is called the Temple of the Sun. This building is destroyed, only the front wall is well preserved, composed of six huge monoliths of pink porphyry. The monoliths are up to 4 meters high. All of each of them reaches 20-25 tons. Moreover, these blocks are not just docked with each other, narrow inserts made of the same material 25 cm wide are squeezed between the blocks. Why was such a technological method used? After all, other samples of Peruvian masonry do not have a similar architectural solution, but they still clearly demonstrate the highest skill of ancient architects. Ollantaytambo blocks are also fitted to each other with such precision that it is impossible to slip between not only a knife blade, but even a sheet of paper.
It is believed that the Ollantaytambo Inca temple complex began to be built just before the invasion of the Spaniards, and the conquest prevented the completion of the construction. This is evidenced by several dozen granite blocks weighing 10 tons or more, scattered on the top of the hill, at its foot and on the road leading to the quarries. These monoliths are called "tired stones". The granite quarries where the blocks were cut are located on the other side of the valley, at a distance of several kilometers in a straight line. The quarries lie on a steep, about 50 °, mountainside at an altitude of about 900 m above the valley. A natural series of questions arises: how the Indians could lower multi-ton blocks along such a slope, then transport them across the stormy mountain river Urubamba (its width here is about 50 m),drag several kilometers along the valley and rise along the same steep slope to a height of 60 m? It is generally accepted that the Indians used wooden rollers and ropes for such work. But common sense casts doubt on the possibility of such work. In the illustrated book by Guaman Poma, there is a drawing where the Indians are dragging a stone boulder on the ropes. True, no skating rinks are depicted here and the dimensions of the depicted stone are by no means gigantic. Garcillaso de la Vega in his chronicle cites the following fact: one of the rulers of the Incas decided to deliver one of the "tired stones" to the construction site. For this, he equipped 20,000 Indians who dragged him on ropes. In one place above the cliff, a stone broke and crushed more than three thousand people. It is hardly worth paying special attention to the numbers, the Spanish chroniclers often sinned with exaggeration,when it came to the Indians. But this fact, first of all, testifies to the fact that the Incas were not able not only to build such structures, but even to deliver such blocks to the construction site.
In Ollantaytambo, “tired stones” lie not only on the road leading to the quarries, but also on the territory of the village in the direction opposite to the quarries. And this indicates that they were not thrown along the way, but most likely are the result of the destruction of an ancient temple. The Incas, who came here last, were not even able to move the monoliths and therefore left them where they lay.
The "polygonal" technique of laying giant blocks is no less a mystery. How were monoliths weighing tens of tons stacked so that skillfully cut corners and grooves on neighboring blocks fit into each other like parts of a children's designer? There is a hypothesis, based, however, only on Indian legends, that the ancient Peruvians were able to soften granite with vegetable juices to the state of plasticine. Later, the surface of the stone hardened and acquired its original properties.
And one more curious fact. In the Cyclopean masonry of Peruvian buildings, there are blocks with one or two trapezoidal ledges. Their functional purpose is not clear. Most of the blocks do not have such protrusions. Such a technological method (a granite block with protrusions) is found, besides Peru, only in one place on the planet. Namely, in the facing of the great pyramids of the Giza plateau. How can one explain the presence of such a specific architectural element in two civilizations remote in time and space?
("Itogi" magazine, N 5, 2005) ANDREY ZHUKOV