today's #MuseumsUnlocked falls outside of my classical comfort zone, but I would be remiss to not share the remarkable megalithic masonry of Sacsayhuaman, just northwest of #Cuzco in #Peru. This site changed the way I think about walls!

#incan #Archaeology

In 1534, a Spanish visitor to Sacsayhuaman wrote that none “of the buildings that Heracles or the Romans built, none are so worthy of being seen as this.” Once you get a sense of the scale of each of these blocks, it is easy to understand why.

Sacsayhuaman stands at 12k feet elevation. That is more than 4k feet above Machu Picchu. The site covers about twelve square miles and includes the largest single Incan structure – a zig-zagging stone terrace or parapet constructed on 3 levels.

The top of the terrace once contained towers, structures, and elaborate waterworks, now only visible in foundations. And the terrace is not only huge – the blocks that were used to construct it are gigantic. The largest monoliths are over 4 meters high and weigh hundreds of tons

up to 20k Incan laborers built the massive structure over 50+ years. In 1558, a Spanish official said that the carving of the larger polygonal stones would have required 20 masons. The site may have still been under construction when the Pizzaro brothers arrived and laid siege.

After the conquistadors took Cuzco, King Manco Inca unsuccessfully retreated to Sacsayhuaman. Although built as a religious complex, the site therefore became known as a fortress. In 1540, the city of Cuzco received heraldry which included a tower,meant to symbolize Sacsayhuaman.

The Spanish disassembled the ‘fortalezza,’ transporting smaller stones down into the valley. An author writing in 1600 tells us that "There is indeed not a house in the city that has not been made of this stone, or at least the houses built by the Spaniards.”
#spolia #reuse

The only reason the larger megaliths remain in situ is that they were too difficult to move. As de la Vega wrote in 1609 “This fortress surpasses the ...colossus of Rhodes, or the pyramids of Egypt... it is indeed beyond the power of imagination to understand"
#Peru #archaeology