S: Sacsahuaman to Szeu-Kha 243
S
T 243 T
Sacsahuaman
A skillful arrangement of several thousand colossal blocks rising in three tiers
to 60 feet, located outside the city of Cuzco. Many of the finely cut, meticulously
fitted stones weigh about 100 tons each. The largest single block is 9 feet thick, 10
feet wide, and 20 feet tall, with an estimated weight of nearly 200 tons.
According to conventional archaeological dogma, Sacsahuaman was raised as
a fortress around 1438 A.D. by the Incas. But they only occupied the site long after
it was built by an earlier people remembered as the Ayar-aucca, a race of “giants”
who arrived in Peru as refugees from a cataclysmic flood. Sacsahuaman was used
as a quarry by the Spanish throughout the 16th century to furnish construction
material for churches and colonial palaces, so its original appearance and actual
purposes were obscured. Even some mainstream archaeologists tend to believe
the intentions of its creators were less military than ceremonial or spiritual.
The superb workmanship evidenced at Sacsahuaman is matched by the daunt-
ing tonnage of its blocks. Even with the aid of modern machinery, positioning
them with equal precision and finesse would present severe challenges. Their
cutting, moving, lifting, and fitting during pre-Columbian times seems far be-
yond the limited capabilities of any pre-industrial people. Modern experiments
to replicate construction using the primitive tools and means supposedly available
before the Europeans arrived invariably produce ludicrous results. Clearly, some