Sacsahuaman’s three zigzagging walls, overlooking Cuzco. The site served as a
setting for ritual battles, included a sun temple, and housed a large storage depot.
Adriana von Hagen.Sacsahuaman is composed of three sectors. To the north lies a circular
reservoir surrounded by the foundations of formal buildings. It may have been
the spring of Calispuquio (spring of good health), a shrine in the ceque system of
Cuzco (see Ceques). A rock outcrop that features the so-called Throne of the
Inca (another ceque shrine, carved into a series of steps), divided the reservoir
area from the second sector—the plaza or esplanade, while the third sector
includes the zigzag terrace walls and summit structures and at least two towers,
which overlooked Cuzco.
Sacsahuaman’s most notable feature is three tiers of zigzag-shaped retaining
walls, commonly called “ramparts,” which flank the plaza. These massive walls,
which stretch along some 400 meters (1,300 feet), are regularly punctuated by
around 50 zigzagging angles. The lowest wall contains the megalithic, perfectly
fitted stones that so astounded fifteenth-century Spaniards and modern visitors
alike: “And even those who have seen it and considered it with attention
imagine, and even believe, that it was made by enchantment, the handiwork of
demons, rather than of men,” wrote the chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega ( 1966
[1609]), who played among the walls of Sacsahuaman as a young boy. The great
boulders that form the ramparts are of limestone, quarried at the building site
itself and from the many outcrops dotting the surrounding hills. Smaller, andesite
blocks came from the quarry of Rumicollca (see Quarrying and Stonecutting).
The Spaniards viewed the Inca constructions at Sacsahuaman as a convenient
quarry, pilfering blocks to build their churches and residences in the city; only
the sheer size of the megalithic blocks saved the ramparts from being completely
dismantled in Colonial times.
The chronicler Cieza noted that the task of building Sacsahuaman was such an
enormous undertaking that the Incas brought in 20,000 men from the provinces
to quarry and cut the stones, haul them around the site with cables of leather and
hemp, dig the ditches, lay the foundations, and cut the poles and beams for the
timbers used in the construction. Cieza remarked that in his time, the workers’
houses could still be seen near Sacsahuaman. The reliable Cieza has been borne
out by archaeology: a 5-hectare (12-acre) settlement known as Muyu Cocha
spread across a hill not far from Sacsahuaman may have housed the workers.