The Street of the Great Stone is named for the famous 12-angled stone which is found halfway down its length. This stone is known for its incredibly large size as well as for the perfection with which its 12 corner angles fit the stones around it. This style of wall building is apparently typical of the Incas, and stones have been found with as many as 44 angles.
Many believe that these megalithic stones and cyclopean walls instead belong to an earlier age, and that the smaller smoother ones are classically Inca.
Sacsayhuaman
Sacsayhuaman is a Quechua name which means "satisfied falcon," but people remember it much more easily by calling it, "sexy woman."
According to legend, the city of Cusco was designed to resemble a puma, and Sacsayhuaman forms the puma's head.
It is difficult to determine the precise origin and purpose of this massive structure. Until the 1930's, Sacsayhuaman served as a kind of free-for-all pre-cut stone quarry for Cusco, and what we see now is only about 20% of the original structure. What IS known is that it was a military garrison, built to withstand attack. It's assumed to be a marvelous example of Inca stonemasonry, with single stones weighing as much as 400 tons.
The stones were certainly not found this way. Because they are smoothed and beveled at the edges, they demonstrate the craftsmanship of skilled masons. They are placed together so snugly, you couldn't get a thin needle between any of the stones. The stones were quarried and brought from miles away, and had to be brought to this site over mountains, gorges, and streams.
A number of theories have arisen regarding how this structure could possibly have been humanly made. Like the structures in Cusco, they seem to fall into the category of the Megalithic Age, but these stones are much larger. It defies the imagination, and some believe that it could only have been done by extraterrestrials, by magic, because it was impossible to have constructed these massive walls with what was available to the Indians at the time.
Others, including one guide we spoke with in Peru, feel that we as humans have lost the gift of metaphysics; that we can achieve anything with deep concentration. This guide believed that a group of people could "levitate" the stones by exerting great concentrating on the task.
What you'll hear most frequently is that because the Indians comprised a large population and revered the stone so greatly, they were able to excavate, move, and hoist these massive stones.
One story youll also commonly hear is that the Incas knew of a plant whose juices softened the surface of a stone, and that they would rub the stones together after they had been treated by this plant juice. The question of how they lifted the stones to rub together still remains!
It is said that at one time the Incas employed 20,000 workers to attempt to move just one megalithic stone. They failed in their efforts, killing several thousand when it rolled over them. However, there is a theory that the Incas understood the use of the inclined plane, the log roller, the lever, and the pulley-reduction system.
The "rational" explanation of how the stones were quarried goes like this: the masons cut a starting line along a natural weakness in the rock using hard stone as a tool. Then, wedges were used to widen the gap until the rock broke away from the main mass. The wedges were made either of another harder stone which they drove in by pounding, or wood, which split the rock by expanding when soaked in water. They used a pounding process to shape the stones, and the pockmarked evidence of this technique is seen everywhere there are Inca ruins.
The "scribing and coping" method might have been used to move the stones.
A scribe is used to mark the upper stone with the exact profile of the lower one using a level to maintain a constant spacial relationship between them.
The Incas cut the upper stone first, and then used a scribe to trace a perfect replica of the cut face on the lower stones, pounding away the excess stone with hammers.
The finished stone is then lowered onto the lower stone by piling logs underneath it. They are gradually taken away until one stone rests on top of the other.
The zig zag portion is the most characteristic of Sacsayhuaman. Some say it is the teeth of the legendary puma, and others feel it symbolizes lightning, which was an important deity to the Incas. Most agree that it forms a strategic wall for military purposes, and that the high born were protected within its walls. A religious significance has also been acknowledged, but that goes without saying because the Incas did not separate the religious from the political.
The finely polished and carved rocks and stone benches were known as the throne of the Incas. The ruler was protected behind the walls, along with around 5000 warriors and all of "The Chosen Women" and the "Virgins of the Sun." Sacsayhuaman has been chronicled as the "Storehouse of the Sun," with all manner of goods being stored here. We were informed that the round ruin could have been a water tower to supply the royal family, but it has also been suggested that it served the purpose of being a large scale gold-panning facility.
Another interesting aspect of Sacsayhuaman is the series of underground tunnels and unusual formations in the yard. The tunnels apparently led all the way to Cusco. Just what was their purpose?
Regardless of how and why it was constructed, Sacsayhuaman was the site of many brutal battles between the Spanish and the Indians. It is at this site that Juan Pizzaro was killed.
It's tragic that so little record keeping was done in Inca times, and the history, or lack of it, has caused people to ponder the reason for these structures being so relentlessly built. Just what were they keeping inside? Could it have been the collection and storage of gold for some higher purpose?
With what was salvaged of the history of the Andean Indians after the Spanish got through with them, it seems that many of the details of the local tales were strangely similar to the biblical tales of Genesis. Many of their mystic words and stories, such as accounts of the Deluge or flood, are the same; this is true to such an extent that when the origin of the Indians is theorized, one theory is an association with the people of the Bible.
