hundred metric tons) has been the subject of wild speculation. These conjectures
range from the intervention of extraterrestrials to the use of laser-like tools—and
even the application of stone-softening herbs. More down-to-earth answers to
these questions are now emerging from recent research.
To obtain their stone, the Incas either picked suitable blocks out of a rockfall or
broke them off a fractured rock face. An example of the first is the quarry of
Kachiqhata, the source of the reddish rhyolite for some of the structures on the
Temple Hill at Ollantaytambo (see Estates, Royal); an example of the second is
the quarry of Rumicollca, the source of much of the andesite used in the
construction of Cuzco. The Incas used and quarried other varieties of stones, for
example, granite at Machu Picchu, and limestone and diorite near Cuzco.
Detail of stone wall at the coastal site of Paredones in the Nazca valley on Peru’s
south coast is a rare example of finely fitted stonework at a coastal settlement.
Adriana von Hagen.At Kachiqhata, high up on a mountainside about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from
Ollantaytambo, the selected blocks, most of which weigh from 40 to over 100
metric tons (44 to over 110 short tons), were roughly trimmed and shaped before
they were sent to the construction site. At Rumicollca, some 35 kilometers (22