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Sacsayhuamán

Sacsayhuamán

Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Cusco, Peru
Client / Owner
Inca Empire
Year
Completed 15th century
Access
Public
Style
—

Sacsayhuamán is an Inca walled complex above Cusco, Peru, at 12,142 feet (3,701 m). Oral history credits Pachacuti, with Topa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac continuing the work. The article names no architect, and dates the earliest hilltop occupation to about 900 CE, a Killke-period origin before the Inca expansion in the 15th century.

The walls are dry-stone masonry with no mortar, with blocks cut to fit tightly, rounded corners and inward-leaning faces. Three terrace walls survive, the longest about 1,312 feet (400 m) long and 20 feet (6 m) high. The largest block is estimated at 128 to nearly 200 tonnes, depending on the source, and the article says stone came from Rumicolca, about 22 miles (35 km) away.

After the siege of Cusco the Spaniards dismantled much of the complex to build the colonial city. Heavy rain damaged parts in January 2010. It is part of the UNESCO-listed City of Cuzco, inscribed in 1983.

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