THE PLANNING OF CUSCO
Something you should know about Cusco is that the city looked very different back in the Incan times. Not just the architecture of the buildings, which was a huge change from incan to spanish architecture. But the shape of the city. The city of Cusco was designed to be shaped like the puma. The animal of power, strength and a connection to the earth, (Kay pacha, in the quetuan language). The Incas had three different animals connecting to different things. The Condor connects to the sky, also responsible for bringing the dead up into the sky, the snake connects to the underworld, and finally the Puma connects to the earth. Saqsaywaman was the head of the puma. Qoriconcha was at the heart. I will explain why later. Now the shape of Cusco is not like a puma. The city now is about 10 times the size of the old puma layout. You have to consider that even though the Incas ruled over a kingdom of 10,000,000 people. Only 40,000 elites lived in the city of Cusco. Now 500,000 people live in the city.
Saqsaywaman :
Saqsaywaman could have been the head of the puma for many different reasons. There are many different theories about what Saqsaywaman could have been. A fortress overlooking the great city. A ceremonial site placed at the head of the puma to worship the gods. It was probably a bit of both. Saqsaywaman was definitely my favorite Inca site. It really displays the ingenuity of the Incas. Without the invention of the wheel, or even written language, they were able to place these huge rocks sometimes weighing 200 tons(by the way, that is heavier than an adult blue whale) together perfectly with no mortar. These rocks have been preserved so well because of another amazing invention of the incas. They have made their stones earthquake proof due to them being in an earthquake prone region. How did they do this? They made their bricks, like Lego bricks. They interlocked. With no mortar there wasn’t any mortar to crack, so it was officially earthquake proof. I remember our first walk to Saqsaywaman, I stood completely in awe at the incan architecture
Qorikancha: The Temple of the Sun
The great Sun Temple was the center of the incan society; the Incas main god, Inti, was the sun god. In the center of Cusco the temple was placed. At the heart of the Puma. The sun was everything for the inca, and it still is for us today. It grows the crops. Warms the earth. And brings us light. the Incas literally covered the sun temple in gold. Just as they covered the moon temple in silver. The Spanish took all the gold and melted it down to be sent to Europe, but it used to be that even the walls were lined with a thick sheet of pure gold! I know, I didn’t believe it at first too!
Thats all for this time see you next time on the Salkantay trek!
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