The Fortress Complex of Sacsayhuamán

One of the most remarkable edifices ever built by man is found along an artificially levelled mountaintop at 11,663-feet, overlooking a valley and the city of Cuzco in southcentral Peru. It originally was an overall fortress, called the “House of the Sun,” with an adjacent complex referred to as the “Temple of the Sun.” 
      When the Spanish invaders first saw the complex, they considered it superior to the Seven Wonders of the World then known. The ruins of the massive fortress are located where today the San Cristobál and Cuzco districts meet (both districts are part of the Cuzco Province).

Lying on the northern outskirts of the city of Cusco, the walled complex of Sacsayhuamán consists of a fortress that has multiple, layered walls, each located behind another, the rear ones higher than the frontal ones. The more one advances inwards, one has to climb higher, meeting more walls of large dry stone with boulders carefully cut to fit together tightly without mortar.  The stones used in the construction of the terraces weigh up to 200 tons, and are among the largest used in any building in prehispanic America, and unlike any other, display a precision of fitting that is unmatched in the entire Western Hemisphere.
    The fortress itself was built on the side of a hill along the rise toward the mountain top, taking full advantage of the altitude changes, and obviously meant for defense and protection. It has seen major battles, including during the Spanish invasion, and during the siege in which Juán Pizarro, the smaller brother of Francisco Pizarro was fatally wounded and died the next day.
    It should be noted that this immense fortress was put together with the usage of huge stone blocks. Modern archaeologists have no idea exactly who built Sacsayhuamán, when it was built, and most importantly, how it was built. Where the famed Machu Picchu is admired for its great location and splendid views, Sacsayhuamán is readily admired for the remarkable architectural engineering skills that were needed for its creation.

These outer three zig-zag walls are perfect for defense at 1500-feet long and 54 feet wide. Not only are they on the side of a hill, forcing an invader to continually climb upward, there is no singular path through these walls. The openings are offset a considerable distance, and all paths through the labyrinth are continually exposed to defending forces from above

When the Spanish asked the defeated Inca who built the magnificent walls and buildings, they replied that they had always been there, long before the Inca came, and had been built by ancient giants. While historians and anthropologists translate that to mean the Inca believed that giant men lived in Cuzco in the past, they simply are unaware of the fact that in biblical lore, “giants” were often those of ancient stature of righteousness and God-like principles.
    At its height, Garcilaso de la Vega (Gómez Suárez de Figueroa), known as El Inca, and born in Cuzco, in the Spanish Empire’s Viceroyalty of Peru, one of the most famous initial chroniclers of the Andean people, their history and customs, tells us that the ancient fortress was capable of housing 5,000 warriors, and had numerous subterranean rooms filled with weapons and supplies. Today, of course, the complex is in ruins, but we know from chronicles and the word-of-mouth from local Quechuans that it was at one time bigger, higher and even had towers. In fact, modern architectural evaluation and Specialists affirm that at one time the outside walls were approximately ten feet higher than today.

To gain entrance from the open fields below, there is one opening, a narrow stepped-up blind where the invader has to (yellow arrow) climb and then turn into a blind opening area that is easily blocked by a lowered boulder (like a draw bridge) and armed guards

While the Inca believed the walls were impassable, they did not count on nor understand the Spanish use of ladders and ramps that negated the impregnable appearance of the fortress.
    During a siege, the fortress had suffered tremendously due to Spanish attack, led by Francisco Pizarro. And the upper parts of the fort contained smaller stones, which were easily demolished and hauled away, to be used for the construction of colonial buildings. The larger stones were too heavy, of course, to be moved and the Spaniards simply left them in their original shape and positions.
    Some of these ancient stones are gigantic, even the size of a truck. Nobody, not even the Inca, knew how they were moved into place. Many of these stones weigh over 50 ton—about the size of a modern Army M-1 Abrams Tank. Even with modern cranes, it would be a very difficult task to move such stones! And when we consider that the largest stone is 120 ton, for man to manage to lift and place in perfect alignment—one can only imagine lifting that weight in the middle ages, let alone in B.C. times.

One stone, about 18 feet high and 12 feet wide, weighing over 100-ton, dwarfs the people around it

The tallest stone is claimed to be 28 feet high and while regularly estimated to weigh over 120 tons, more weightier estimates place the largest stones at 300 tons (Felix R. Paturi, Prehistoric Heritage, Purnell & Sons , 1979); 361 tons (Michael M. Alouf, History of Baalbek, Book Tree Pub., 1999); and even 440 tons (D. Zink, The Ancient Stones Speak, Musson Book Co., 1979).
    The cutting of these hard rocks is yet another mystery that so far no-one has managed to come up with any plausible answer as to how it was done. In attempting to understand the construction of Sacsayhuamán we are no more knowledgeable that we are in understanding how the giant Egyptian Pyramids were built.
    In addition, one block on the outer walls has faces cut to fit perfectly with 12 other blocks, while some blocks were cut with as many as 36 sides. All the blocks were fitted together so precisely that a thickness gauge could not be inserted between them.

Two images showing the numerous cuts in these huge boulders that required exact cuts and placement of joining stones where no mortar was used. Such exactness can barely be achieved today

It was Garcilaso de la Vega, whose father was the Spanish captain and conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas and mother an Incan princess, Palla Chimpu Ocllo (daughter of Túpac Huallpa and granddaughter of Inca Tupac Yupanqui), who was baptized after the fall of Cuzco as Isabel Suarez Chimpu Ocllo, a chronicler who wrote of Sacsayhuamán: “This fortress surpasses the constructions known as the seven wonders of the world. For in the case of a long broad wall like that of Babylon, or the colossus of Rhodes, or the pyramids of Egypt, or the other monuments, one can see clearly how they were executed. They did it by summoning an immense body of workers and accumulating more and more material day by day and year by year. They overcame all difficulties by employing human effort over a long period. But it is indeed beyond the power of imagination to understand now these Indians, unacquainted with devices, engines, and implements, could have cut, dressed, raised, and lowered great rocks, more like lumps of hills than building stones, and set them so exactly in their places. For this reason, and because the Indians were so familiar with demons, the work is attributed to enchantment.”
    Some Spanish priests and chronicle-writers, among whom was Pedro Cieza de León, a cousin to Francisco Pizarro’s secretary and recorder, as well as Bernabe Cobo, Sarmiento de Gamboa, and Pedro Pizarro wrote extensively of Sacsayhuamán having been built by demons and evil spirits—they found it impossible to believe it had been built by mere men, and especially could not grasp any possibility that it had been done by the Inca whom they had defeated so easily considering the numbers arraigned against them, and who lacked so much of the normal and fundamental requirements, like not having the wheel nor a written language. It is interesting that so many people today believe Sacsayhuamán and so much else in Peru was built by the Inca when no one at the time believed that possible. And the Inca themselves told the Spaniards all of it had been built by ancients.
   One can only wonder what ancients that might have been. When Nephi wrote that the Lord taught him how to build a ship, "not after the manner of men," and "showed unto me many great things," and Nephi later "taught his people how to build buildings, and work in all manner of wood, and iron, and of copper, and of brass and of steel..." perhaps we have that answer that has escaped archaeologists and anthropologists for centuries.