Sacsayhuamán Quick Facts

Sacsayhuamán is a citadel located in Cusco, Peru and was the historical capital of the Inca Empire. It was hypothesized that the citadel was built by the Inca in the 15th century under king  Pachuacuti, but this is still under debate.

Sacsayhuamán is a fortress built with megalithic stones as bricks. It is located at 12000 feet. The fortress has more terraces and one can climb them by stairs. It is surrounded by walls 18 m tall, and 500 to 1000 m long built from blocks weighing 100 to 200 tons each. All the monoliths from Sacsayhuamán have different shapes and weights but there are no two identical stones. The huge stones fit well and stay together without mortar, and it is a mystery how the builders cut them.

The stone masons fit them together tightly that well, that sometimes one cannot fit a needle in between stones. No earthquake moved them. The age of this construction is hard to be established. It was believed that they were produced by a pre-Inca civilization but based on the erosion of the stones one may guess an age of these walls of 15 to 20.000 years or even 30.000 years. At that time those who probably populated the Americas coming from Behring strait were not there yet.  Sacsayhuamán is also one of the most mysterious ancient constructions on the planet. It was used as a location for Inca ceremonies.

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