Nephite Stonework at Ollantaytambo

As the ancient Peruvians expanded outward from Cuzco, they obviously would have built other settlements and cities. One of those locations outward from Cuzco is Ollantaytambo (Ullantaytampu, pronounced oh-yen-tie-TAM-boe). It is a marvel of engineering and architecture, and is both a fortress, and a complex city. Here is found massive cut and dressed stones from the Kachiqhata quarries located in a ravine across the Urubamba River some 3 miles from the town.

Mountain top city and fortress of Ollantaytambo

Perched on the top of a steep slope that overlooks the town located 58 miles northwest of Cuzco and 30 miles from Machu Picchu, sits the massive and powerful defensive fortress. At the northwestern end of what is called the Sacred Valley, in a section known as the Temple Hill, which includes the massive and extensive terraces up the side of the mountain, sits the ancient site of Ollantaytambo.
    The site is a rare if not unique construction in Andean Peru, where its massive citadel served as both a temple and a fortress. At some unknown point in time, and for unknown reasons, work mysteriously stopped on this huge project.

City at the top of the Ollantaytambo fortress

The upper section of this site is located the fortress, made up of a series of carved stone terraces built to protect the valley from possible invasion by warring tribes. One of the best-preserved areas lies north of the Hanan Huacaypata square: an area of 15 blocks of houses built on top of carved stone walls.
    One of the most interesting places in Ollantaytambo is the Gateway of the Gods, which was built several thousand years before the Inca arrived at Ollantaytambo. According to researchers it was built by a culture called the Urin Pacha, a name given to these ancient people because researchers have no idea who they were, where they came from or where they went. Others, like anthropologist Jesus Gamarra, believe the site was built by the Arak civilization. In any event, it is clearly evident that the earliest parts of Ollantaytambo date into BC times.

Two of the Quarry sites from which the large slabs were cut and hauled down the mountain, across the valley and river and up the other side to Ollantaytambo

This site features three main quarrying areas: Mullup'urku, Kantirayoq, and Sirkusirkuyoq, all of which provided seven blocks of enormous rose-colored rhyolite monoliths, an igneous volcanic rock of felsic composition that were stood upright in a row far taller than a person and of undetermined purpose.
    An elaborate network of roads, ramps, and slides connected them with the main building areas. Because of the nature of fracture planes, most blocks in this quarry have two relatively clean faces needing little or no work. Thus, with an adequate work force two, at the most three weeks, is all it would have taken to prepare even the largest block in the         quarries. Within these time frames, 15 crews of 20 men each, could have roughed out the total of 150 blocks found in the quarries, on the road, scattered around the construction site, and on site and in position in less than eight months.

An ancient wall of six mammoth stone blocks

The Wall of the Six Monoliths is one of the most dominating features of Ollantaytambo’s landscape. It has been constructed with six huge granite blocks that interlink perfectly with one another. According to legend, the monumental blocks were transported across a vast plain, by water and then up a mountain – all of this without the use of crane lifting technology. Archaeologists have also suggested that the granite blocks appear to have been cut using stone or bronze tools, but no such tools have ever been recovered near the site.
    These enormous slabs of andesite stone which form what is referred to as The Wall of Living Rock. The curved slabs appear to have been removed from a mountain side with pin-point accuracy. The fact that andesite rock has been used at all is baffling in itself. Today, engineers can only extract it using diamond or laser cutting technology. But that ancient people could gain access to it with such perfect control in their cutting raises major questions about these people and the type of technology to which they had access.

Large hewn and dressed stone laying unfinished on its emplacement ramp

As mentioned, the stone blocks were brought down the mountainside on wet sand, across the Valley and the Urubamba River, then up a long construction ramp of logs to the great fortress-temple complex above the village of Ollantaytambo. This fortress was famous for its beautifully fitted great slabs of red porphyry stone forming a portion of what some archaeologists claim must have been intended to be its principal temple. But this complex, an ancient work in progress was never finished. A number of large cut blocks were abandoned en route to the site and remain today, known as piedraw cansadas or "tired stones".
    Within the complex, a stone that was in the process of being maneuvered into its final position can be seen lying on its emplacement ramp. Other stones exhibit peculiar grooves which were meant to be filled with molten bronze or copper to lock two adjacent stones together, as was also done among the cultures of Tiwanaku around Lake Titicaca, as well as the Greeks in the Old World for their temple construction.

Where one of the many blocks of stone was cut from the rock of the mountain side

In the quarries where these blocks were cut nd shaped, the blocks were removed in such a precision that we hardly find scratches on the rock. The rock from where the slabs were removed is andesite and that material is really strong and hard to “cut,” you would need something that is stronger than andesite to accomplish this.
    In interesting fact is that these slabs were so precisely removed that there are no broken edges or any other signs of extreme force applied that could have caused the material to “break” or deform. The corners from where they were removed are not sharp but are almost perfectly round and today experts have no way to explain this in a society claimed to have had only bronze tools.
    Many of these stones have almost perfect angles and in some cases are as smooth as glass. While archaeologists are in awe how this was done with only stone and bronze tools, the Nephites had steel tools.
    As Nephi wrote: “And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me? And the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools” (1 Nephi 17:9-10). Nephi also tells us he “taught his people how to work in iron and steel” (2 Nephi 5:15), and Jarom claims early on the Nephites had “machinery and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground” (Jarom 1:8)

Incredible defensive walls on top of the mountain where Ollantaytambo sits

In addition, from the very beginning the Nephites were concerned about the anger and danger of those left behind in the Land of Lehi, the land of first inheritance. As Nephi wrote of his brothers and those with them: “But behold, their anger did increase against me, insomuch that they did seek to take away my life” (2 Nephi 5:2,4).
Nephi, himself, feared coming attacks from his brothers and those with them. He was so confident they would soon approach them in their new home, that he “did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people” (2 Nephi 5:14).
    This would have included the building of defensive walls around their homes and new city. After all, Nephi states that he “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron” (2 Nephi 5:15).

Walls fitted without mortar much like those at Sacsayhuaman

In other areas of the fortress, we see some incredible stonework: staggered, mortarless, irregular stones, fitted together like jigsaw puzzle pieces. This stonework construction has remained standing after numerous devastating earthquakes that have crumbled the adobe and brick structures all around it.
    In addition to quarries, stones were found on landslide talus, obviating the need to detach the stone from the living bedrock.

Narrow stairways led up from the valley floor to the height of the city

To reach and penetrate of Ollantaytambo, an enemy had to charge up long flights of narrow stairs alongside huge terraces with eight-foot high walls, making it impossible for any approach except through narrow and easily defended approaches.
In addition to the defensive walls and monolithic construction of Ollantaytambo, it should be noted that the manner of cutting and fitting the stones at Ollantaytambo matches that work accomplished at Sacsayhuaman.

Top: Interlocking blocks at Ollantaytambo; Bottom: Interlocking blocks at Sacsayhuaman

Built without the use of mortar and perfectly fit, not a piece of paper could fit between the joints of these stones that often weigh over 50 tons. These interlocking blocks are almost identical in their use at both sites.
    It is important to consider these defensive walls and cities of ancient Andean Peru, since they match the scriptural record and no such bui8ldings and walls have been found in ancient North America. Nor have such defensive arrangements in Mesoamerica, though they have numerous cities made of stone but no defensive walls for the most part around them.