The Living Stones of Sacsayhuaman

[Music] [Music] [Music] in the Peruvian Andes at a height of 3.5 thousand meters one can find cusco the city immediately fascinates with its universe of narrow streets built back during the times of the Incas by the tenebrous architecture of the colonial period by the colorful Indian garments and the mass of tourists who come here from all over the world to get closer to the mysteries of our history in Cusco everything reminds you of the Incas the founders of the city the ancient walls made of the thoroughly polished boulders the language of Quechua used by the Incas centuries ago the seven colored flag of to want to sue you the flag of the Incan Empire that is now flying in the wind in the central square of the city next to the flag of the Republic of Peru according to legend Cusco was founded by the elder son of the messenger of the Sun God manco capac who came to this place with his sister wife uh Cleo to bring people the laws of civilization to help them liberate themselves from ignorance poverty and aggression to him belongs the first commandment of the state don't lie don't steal don't be lazy this commandment and such an approach allowed the creation of a highly organized society the Inca Empire which ruled over millions of people and stretched for thousands of kilometers from Ecuador to Chile the lost civilization has left a lot of unresolved mysteries the Incas did not have their own scrip and therefore left no written records and so whatever we know about them comes from the Chronicles of the Spanish conquerors one of such mysteries is the Incan architecture it is believed that the majority of the various Incan sites and constructions were built within less than one century even today these constructions inspire awe and admiration among both the historians and the architects as well as among the multiple tourists among these are the sights of a Leone to Tombaugh the terraces of pisac the laboratory in Moray the famous flying city of Machu Picchu the temples and palaces of cusco and many others however some scholars believe that the Incas did not construct all of these themselves but simply took over the sites that were already built and used them for their own benefit at the high hill in the northern suburb of cusco there is the famous sacsayhuamán probably one of the most striking mysteries of architecture this is what Garcilaso de la Vega wrote about in his commentary on reales de los incas in the 17th century it's impossible to imagine the proportions of this endeavor until you see it after a laborious study and a close examination of the stones used in the construction one can't help but believe that sorcery must have been involved in the construction process so outstanding is the impression that they make could it really be demons who created it and not people sacsayhuamán consists of three layers of zigzag walls made of megaliths large boulders weighing dozens or even hundreds of tons sacsayhuamán also encompasses a lot of other buildings and constructions that stretch along a vast territory it is believed that the main construction job was done in the middle of the fifteenth century during the reign of Inka Pacheco tech unfortunately it is impossible to make a definite statement as to how the site looked like in ancient times for the Spaniards who came here in the middle of the sixteenth century the destruction of sacsayhuamán was somewhat a symbol of the victory of the kingdom of God over paganism of European civilization over Indian barbarism the site was used not only as a source of the construction materials for the churches and the private mansions of Cusco but was also subjected to a purposeful demolition only the megalithic walls remained in place since the Spaniards were not able to destroy them the precision and accuracy with which the boulders and the walls were fit to each other is mesmerizing and it is considered by many people to be unrivaled even today in the spots where the masonry was disturbed one can see that it's impossible to squeeze a sheet of paper in between the boulders even more it is impossible to even notice joint the method of sucks a human's construction was perplexing not only for the medieval chroniclers the above-mentioned Garcilaso de la Vega even wanted to notarize the size of the boulders so that people in the medieval Spain would believe his stories about sacsayhuamán but for the modern architects and archaeologists as well for the latter it remains unfathomed how it was possible to transport these blocks of stones and to fit them at such nonlinear surfaces the Incas knew no wheels no draft animals and there is no evidence of Jack lovers or any other devices facilitating the work with such heavy weights by the time the Spaniards arrived there the Incas were no longer building anything in addition the Chronicles and legends in terms of the construction methods mentioned nothing else but manual labor the magical assistance of the earth and the wish of the stone to be transported the walls were made of limestone fixed together by a method of dry walling without any cement at the destroyed parts of the walls one can see the wall structure first there goes the lining it was done by means of the high quality polygonal masonry then there goes the inside filling rows of roughly processed boulders and clay the builders did not follow a common procedure where the installation of the heaviest megaliths would go first while the filling of the wall with smaller stones would go second one can see that the large megaliths and these are the largest stones rest on a foundation that was prepared in advance for your information the weight of the biggest corner stone according to some estimates reaches around 300 tonnes in addition to reach such precision and accuracy of joints that the sucks a human has one would have to do a multiple adjustment and a lot of finally calculated transportations of the stone blocks limestone is a solid but very fragile material that often has a very non homogeneous structure that can split and crumble at the slightest oblique Ness it is not clear how these constructors could work with the vertically placed huge boulders of this weight with only the help of the primitive manual labour the adjoining surfaces of the blocks often have a complicated three-dimensional relief this may be good and efficient for the areas of high seismic activity that are not rare in this region it allows the boulders to return to their fixed position in a natural way the gypsum model demonstrates how stable such masonry is even without any adhesive means [Music] many blocks have corrugations and hollows archeologists believe that these were the lifting fixtures however many of these hollows have the shape of simple dents that are in no way suitable for utilization of any levers or crutches moreover at the backside of the large boulders which is usually not processed there are often no hollows at all in addition the Incas did not possess any timber that could be suitable for producing such construction tools the aromatic eucalyptus groves nowadays bountiful and lush on the slopes of the local mountains appeared here only in the 19th century further evidence that the ancient Constructors had methods unknown to us comes from the positioning of the granite blocks in the temple of the Sun in alle anta tomba forty kilometers to the north of cusco these blocks were transported from the other side of the canyon across the river and were lifted up the narrow precipitous cliff there even remains the megaliths which were abandoned on the way and which possessed no signs of transportation tools at the cliff itself there is too little space to place the structures and the necessary number of people to manage this weight another mystery is how the stone blocks were installed and adjusted to each other at an almost precipitous cliff at the top of the hill surrounded with the walls there is one of the most amazing buildings in the sacsayhuamán complex a party Altadena we are now standing at the top of the mountain we're a fortress is erected we can see a part of the building itself as well as the remains of the walls and foundations in description of the chroniclers Missa de Lyon sir--my and toady Gamboa and Garcilaso de la Vega this is deemed to be the foundation for the three towers most likely this circle buyuk marca was part of the house of the Sun while the other two towers called pocus marca and Psyche marca were located on each side according to CEA's at de Lyon what the Spaniards perceived as a fortress namely these towers at the upper part of sacsayhuamán represented in fact a very big ritual complex dedicated to the Sun there was also built the temple of lightning represented by the lines radiating from the towers the other lower gods resided in other buildings the temple of the rainbow the temple of the moon and the stars which surrounded the house of the Sun the purpose of succs a human could be that of a big single complex where the Incas worshipped the Sun this construction was also believed to be the dwelling for the guardian gods heavenly deities living in the material world beside this version sucks a human being a ritual complex there are plenty of other hypotheses starting from simple domestic ones a storage building for food a water tower a defensive fortress and up to the most exquisite theories like sucks a human providing the influence to the earth through the tell your concurrence or sucks a human being a generator of subtle energies which enable extraordinary power etc indeed the construction is more reminiscent of a technological installation than a temple for worship the rigid geometric shapes the intricate system of water drainage in the western part of the tower which by the way has an unclear purpose the megalithic walls protecting the hill from destruction the foundations are made of limestone the walls are made from a more solid material andesite and it's stones of largely rectangular shape are processed with high quality the remnants of andesite stones can still be found in the area and they are used for restoration of the complex sometimes the andesite blocks are also found inside the destroyed walls but the archaeologists have no explanation as to this except for an assumption that for the internal filling of the wall the Constructors used the remains of earlier buildings also there are two entrances into the underground caves both of which are bricked up for safety purposes it was said that different people mainly those who sought adventures or the lost treasures of the Inca would often get lost or go insane in the tunnels that is why in the 1920s the local authorities decided to brick up the entrances into the caves the intriguing caves sparked the interest of the geo radar researchers who are working here in July 2012 various tunnels and underground caves are not a rare thing in Peru however in the area of the Tower of muic marca which is believed to be the most likely location of the underground constructions it appeared to be impossible to perform the Geo radar research due to the disturbances coming from the towers located in direct visibility none of the underground buildings where the remainders were found around the walls where rock fractures causing the deformation of the walls occurred however in the area of Lake cacao and mountain chincana the remainders of the underground constructions were discovered one of them was interpreted by the experts as a sepulchers [Music] [Music] behind the hill which is believed to be in fact just an extrusion that is when a marshy lava squeezes out during an eruption there is a large oval plaza kocha historians assume that it was an artificial reservoir however judging by its shape it rather reminds of a big arena the true purpose of the object is anyway unknown at the edge of coach out there are the large rocks which seemed to be chaotically piled up no one can explain what was the mysterious force that brought them there there's even a boulder leaning against a polygonal masonry wall that means that some of the walls and ledges were evidently constructed here before the large stones appeared around scientists do not exclude the possibility that what they see are the remainders of a very ancient and big construction [Music] a similar site exists in the place called a Anka located two kilometers from the complex however the size of those perfectly processed and seemingly chaotically scattered stones is less impressive the topic of imported stones arose during the tour around the area several times in the vicinity there's a big rock gin Khanna that is famous for the large number of hollows on its surface it is said that this is exactly the rock that the Incas attempted to move once many years ago it is called the tired stone and if killed thousands of Indians during its fall when the stone fell down it barred the entrance to a dungeon that was worshiped by the Incas hence the Inca cut out a new entrance and steps in the mountain their remains are still well visible it is hard to say what transportation technologies were used by the Incas when they were moving the rocks weighing several thousand tons or even if it took place at all but the separate stones or rocks which originally were not from here are also found in the neighborhood in the form of the Huaraz a waka is any site that the Incas associated with a manifestation of superior power to them often belong the stones and rocks with the cuts on their surface the Indian legends and the Spanish chronicles often give a detailed description of the interaction between the Indians and the natural forces via these Walker's this is what Garcilaso de la Vega wrote in his chronicles it the waka denotes a sacred object anything could be such an object anything through what the devil could speak to a person among huacas there were idols frogs huge stones or trees where the enemy of man penetrated so that to make people believe that he was the god itself the name waka was also applied to any temple be it a small or a large one to the tombs in the fields as well as to the corners inside the houses from which the devil spoke to the priests and other people who communicated with him in a friendly manner another chronicler of indian-origin goemon Palma at the end of the sixteenth century wrote that through walk us the Incas would come to know about the location of silver gold and other mines this is what he wrote about some of the Incan kings tupac inca you ponky could talk to walk us from then he would learn about the past in the future events of the whole world wine a copic one of the last sovereigns of the Incas wanted to do the same but lakas did not want to talk to him it was said that only the idol of Perea caca responded to him and it told that there was little time left for the talks and for the reign of the Incas since the people who bear the name of Viracocha were about to come to this land already during the reign of Y enough topic or straight after it so that to rule on behalf of a single and great Idol which they would bring with them [Music] the walk Asst surround busca all around in this region there are many rock formations or large rocks scattered around and densely covered with the various hollows made on a strongly eroded surface the cutouts and hollows have very diverse shapes from the most primitively processed hollows and up to the geometrically calibrated ones no systematic approach is perceived in the staircase and rectangular cuts although some of them could be used as benches or steps for a more convenient ascent to the hill on the other hand there is definitely a certain similarity between all huacas all of them usually contain a rock with cuts walk us often have the following structure multiple and mostly rectangular cuts and stairs imposed in a rather chaotic manner one or a few well processed walls with the bosses the corrugations a cave which is cut with high quality and containing several compartments something like a grotto and a small land plot or a stone processed in a different manner with the images resembling snakes animals or the curved riverbeds often such Waka's are adjacent to or surrounded with the smaller constructions of the polygonal masonry of different quality some huacas also have an evident connection to the various water drainage systems for example in k uncle there's a walkout where the two outlets in the rock evidently served as the sources of water and they are accompanied with the well-defined drains next to it at a big rock covered with the cuts all over the surface there is a picturesque winding water course it's very hard to say what was the function of such a miniscule drain the width of the water course is only a few centimeters during the geol radar research of sex a human there were collected the samples to be further examined in detail in Russian scientific research centers in the course of that further examination it appeared that the blocks mainly consisted of the fine crystalline limestone the ancient constructors were obviously using a high quality material some of the blocks could make a dinging sound when knocked on the other hand the larger stones often possessed various faults and a rather non homogeneous structure which is normal for natural formations the raw material for the walls was most likely taken directly at the construction sites since the limestone in the crag near the tower has the same structure as the limestone in the blocks at the surface of sexy human stones the traces of processing and hammering can be clearly seen these are the small hollows with slight defects in them as a result of hammering the majority of the blocks insects a human are covered with such markings such tracks appear after thumping against the limestone which is the raw material for the walls with something more solid we can see that the Constructors were using different tools to process the more fine details the dots at the blocks become smaller and denser by the stones edges having conducted the experiments on processing at a nearby natural stone we had no more doubts as to this type of processing had been applied there are commonly known legends about the Indians making the stone soft and malleable with the help of some liquid during the experimental processing of a nearby stone we attempted to apply vinegar vinegar dissolved limestone but it would be ineffective for all other formations after we rinsed the surface with water it became clear that the effect was different from that visible at the stone blocks all over the place this method is neither suitable for a precise fixing of stones to each other together with the hammering there was another method of processing applied it is a more refined one but it is yet not known to us the adjoining surfaces are often abrasive this allows us to have the minimum clearance at the joints only fractions of millimeters nevertheless this does not explain how one can achieve such accuracy with big megaliths consisting of solid yet fragile material as the local limestone is where the surface of one block is almost an identical copy of the surface of another adjoining block even the Spaniards acknowledge the elegance of the outlines of the processed stones and the multiplicity of the small and precisely implemented details at the blocks of all sizes when evaluating the accuracy of joints it is worth noting the megalith of a Leone to Tombaugh granite is a more solid material than the limestone of succs a human this raw material demonstrated the pinpoint accuracy of processing and joining [Music] nowadays we use rather complex devices to achieve such results but the Incas did not possess accurate metering devices they used only the most primitive methods of construction and the stone tools up until now the debates continued as to how the ancient constructors could achieve such accuracy very often a hypothesis is expressed about the softening of the stone and converting the material of the blocks into a more malleable state there exists even more exotic hypotheses it was often observed that the masonry structure of the walls resembled to a live material besides that the Incas themselves believed the stone to be alive there also exist many legends about the buildings arising out of nowhere in an unfathomable and mysterious way during just one night the builders used not only the primitive hammering while the white dots are the traces of the hammering tool than the other tracks which are also well known to us have no explanation the archaeologists Luis Guevara demonstrated a whole collection of the various and mysterious tracks of an unknown tool these tracks are unique their quality is small as compared to the total volume of the processed stones however it is clear that the majority of these tracks were destroyed with time [Music] this is what luis Guevara tells about such traces in the cave of one of the Wonka's in the suburb of Cusco we are in the temple of chief takaka the chroniclers have not much information about this Wonka and as of today the site is under exploration we are trying to figure out the purpose of this waka during the solstice the Sun illuminates the cave from the inside all the space all this wall has been processed the assumption is that it was prepared to be afterwards covered with gold an unusual tool was used to achieve this result the elegance and the accuracy of which the surfaces and the steps are done is amazing I'm not sure if the Incas possessed any tool which could provide such a result the horizontal surface facing the floor is so smooth that it rather suggests that some soft moldable material was cut with a device similar to a knife with the thickness of the razor being only 2 to 3 millimeters a similar track is found at a diorite rock opposite to the megalithic walls of sex a human here a big piece of rock was separated from the main mass by a cut several meters long [Music] [Music] and many similar traces are available in Aliante tomba at the mountain Incan Masana there is a famous platform that has a perfectly smooth and polished wall and a fluted floor the cuts were made by a tool resembling a modern hatchet applied for plastic materials with the width of the razor around 2 millimeters cuts are made along the line but in a rather negligent manner not caring too much about their accuracy and similarity of the cells the tool sometimes crosses the furrow from one edge to the other close to it there's another interesting processed land site it is treated with the same method two cuts inside of each deepening the site represents four regular diamonds traversed by a hollow going around the rock shelf however even more unusual traces are available in sucks a human at the western side of the lake pachow there's an amazing stone the processing style of which is significantly different from all other stones in the area the surface erosion is normal for limestone but at the same time if we look at it more attentively we can see that the traces of processing in this case resemble more of a ductile plastic material processing unless the Constructors were trying to imitate such treatment with the help of the lapidary technologies only such traces can be easily made with fingers on the unhardened clay however next to it there's a figurine produced in a definitely conventional way along the whole perimeter of the stone there's a shelf at which the traces of cuts and grinding can be observed very well the Shelf transforms into a snake-like formation which the archaeologists actually considered to be the representation of two snakes looking at each other again the tool and the method of such treatment are not known however it is hard to shake the impression that these are the consequences of treating a ductile material especially since at another side of the stone there exists the traces of tapping or hammering these traces can be seen distinctly they were obviously done later and have no relation to the mentioned wavy surface of its production one can also see the signs of a sort of blurring of the material with the subsequent hammering of it one could assume that part of these traces appeared on the stone during the decoration of the stone with golden jewelry but it is still very difficult to understand what was purpose of the constructors being so thorough with imitating the ductile material treatment a similar trace is available at the stone in the wall in kinko there's a place where the limestone looks exactly like a frozen puddle however it's a matter of common knowledge that under the usual conditions it is impossible to melt down limestone when heated limestone loses its features and transforms into quick climb there's even a more surprising discovery during the excavations of 2008 performed next to the complex called the temple of the Moon there was discovered an interesting artifact its main value is in the fact that the tracks of processing were not subjected to erosion it is hard to imagine a tool that could leave such tracks such a result cannot be achieved neither by etching nor by scraping and still less by hammering the only parallel that comes to mind that these could be the tracks of a heated spear applied to an easily meltable material [Music] in summary I would like to mention one more discovery that is directly related to the treatment of stones on Cinque on the mountain that was already mentioned there was discovered an image resembling a form of writing at first this was perceived as ordinary vandalism by the tourists since it was done with white paint however having conducted a more thorough examination and especially after pouring water on this part of the rock it appeared that the writing was rather old and although made in a rather careless way it looked like the equations written on the blackboard with chalk it was a surprise to unveil that the white paint had nothing to do with the writing since the writing was done with an unknown method similar to etching the writing in fact is represented with the whitish crystalline formations incorporated into the stone structure unfortunately it was impossible either to get a scraping or the samples of the writing since it would lead to the partial destruction of the writing in the area of muak mark up the tower that we've mentioned the archaeologists pointed out an andesite stone block with an ornament on it its structure and style reminded those of the crystalline writing in Chan Khong nothing of the kind had ever been found before and that is why there has been no success yet with the deciphering of the writing although it is evident that these writings have a direct relation to the ancient constructors however the Incas had no script to store the information they used kip-up a system of measurement based on the nodules and braiding of the laces at the same time we know nothing of how the Incas designed their constructions where from they received their knowledge how they transferred it further we also understand little about their mindset and world outlook we know very little about those who were considered to be the Sorcerer's the priests and about the mysterious Amata the philosophers and scientists without whom the Inca sovereigns did not make any important decisions so who are they these ancient constructors of sex a human who were capable of doing things which are beyond explanation in our modern civilized world the conquistador Don Mun so Sara D Leguizamo the last one of those who were the first ones to conquer Peru wrote the following about the Incan sovereigns we found these states in a very good condition the mentioned Incas were governing them so wisely that among these people there were no thieves neither vicious men nor unfaithful lives no immoral people everyone had their honest and useful professions they knew no crime or execution everyone had their own property and not a single other person would claim it what urges me to write about this now is my consciousness since I feel guilty we've destroyed all this by our vicious and mean example we've eliminated the nation that had such sovereigns and that was so happy [Music] you

Channel: Ombio Productions

Views: 3,878,571

Rating: 4.736814 out of 5

Keywords: ancient mysteries megaliths, Peru Incas, Sacsayhuaman, Cusco, documentary, The Living Stones of Sacsayhuaman, Ministry of Culture of Peru, archaeological complex, geophysicists to research, machu picchu

Id: M9J_ivMwTxc

Length: 39min 52sec (2392 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 22 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/chaddbrochill]

This doc poses so many questions, yet offers no answers. Yet, I'm glad they didn't slap "because aliens" on it, which I was totally waiting for.