Sacsayhuamán Walls

Description: Sacsayhuamán (also known as Saksaq Waman) is a walled complex near the old city of Cusco. Some believe the walls were a form of fortification, while others believe it was only used to form the head of the Puma that Sacsayhuamán along with Cuzco form when seen from above.

The megalithic structure at Sacsayhuaman in Peru has equaled those tolerances with huge multi-sided blocks which are all completely irregular in a kind of three dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

According to Graham Hancock, archaeologist, one of those stones is 29 feet high and weighs more than 360 tons; the equivalent of 500 passenger automobiles. That stone is not even at the base of the wall. Yet, the quarry from which the granite blocks were cut was more than 10 miles away.

Like all Inca stonework there is still mystery surrounding how they were constructed. Thanks to an as yet unexplained precision in stone-cutting, the structure is built in such a way that a single piece of paper will not fit between two stones.

This precision, combined with the rounded corners of the limestone blocks, the variety of their interlocking shapes, and the way the walls lean inward (ubiquitous in Inca architecture), is thought to increase the ruins' incredible durability--devastating earthquakes in Cuzco have left it undamaged.