ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK OF OLLANTAYTAMBO

Ollantaytambo, one of the most amazing Incas village we have nowadays.

Ladies and gentlemen in front of you there must be one of the most impressive villages built
by the Incas. This place calls Ollantaytambo. We are going to visit and walk around for this
National Park and the town for around one hour in a half. At
the same time, we´ll find everything that Inca needed to live
without any trouble for 100 years, terraces, water fountains,
temples, ritual altar, Inca trails, food storage, when we reach
the top we´ll see the temple of the sun and if there are no
clouds at the top we´ll see the most sacred snowcapped
mountain venerated by Incas calls Wakay Willka that in my
(their) native language means Sacred Tear, still venerated by
native Peruvian people.

First of all, let me start with the information that you

have in your guide book written by the catholic priest Antonio Valdez at the end of the XVIII
century. In fact, this priest wrote the love drama between the Inca general Ollanta and the beautiful
daughter of the Inca King Pachacuteq, Cusi Qoyllor (Sweet
Star). The drama said that the Inca general and the king´s
daughter had a forbidden love. As we know, according to the
drama Ollanta was one of the best Incas generals and
respected by the Inca king, but when he told Pachacuteq
about his secret love with his daughter, the King radically
changed his attitude and became upset, so the king threw
him out of his army saying “It´s a huge offense for us that a
common man could touch to an Inca princess and even more
try to get married to her”, after that they had an argument
and as a consequence of that, Ollanta declared war to Incas.
So, Ollanta organized his army in this town and resisted for more than ten years the siege made by
the Incas and their attacking, when Pachacuteq died, his son the next Inca King Tupac Yupanqui
looking his sister and his niece prisoners in an Acllawasi (Inca convent) in Cusco, excused Ollanta
and let him live and got married to his sister”.
… Lovely story (probably), but never happened. The writer existed, that is true, but the way he
described that love story not to have any relation with the Incas mentality and their behavior in the
15th century.
Let me support my ideas, Ollantaytambo, with a
population approximately of 2000 people didn´t represent any
trouble for Incas. On the other hand, Pachacuteq was a beloved
king, every town that knew him, respected, and loved him. Just if
we remember, his way to conquer was in a peaceful way, instead
of fighting, he preferred offering a lot of food and practiced a
reciprocity system. Also, he was considered an exceptional leader.
Since the 8th Inca King betrayed the Incas, Pachacuteq declared
punishment for any traitors, he said “If somebody betrays us,
how the town could trust us if there is a traitor, the
consequence will be: First, his head will be used as a
ceremonial cup where we drink the blood of our enemies.
Second, with his teeth will make a necklace, and finally with
his femur will make instrumental music (pipes)”. Even more,
Pachacuted son, the 10th Inca King, Tupac Yupanki, was the
conquistador of the Incas, in his period Incas conquered important empires such as Qollas in the
south and Chimus in the north so the general Ollanta had any chance fighting against Incas.
If you look to the mountain, it´s said that
there is an angry looking man formation which is
known as Tunupa or Wiracochan, was the
messenger of WIRACOCHA, the invisible God
who taught everything to the Incas, such as, how to
grow, how to weave, how to build, etc., but if we
see carefully we notice it´s a natural formation.
There is a wonderful description wrote by
Guaman Poma de Ayala which talks about the
profile of the Inca king. It´s said, “when Manco
Inca became the Inca king, the priests ordered to
carve the profile of his face with some of his warriors in the mountain called Tampus.” The natural
formation in front of you is not the profile of an Inca Manco Inca, in our tour, we´ll see the profile
of “Manco Inca, the Rebel”. Follow me, please. Let´s start walking around this park …

Inca Terraces and Incas Economy

 Incas terraces, the basement to maintain an economy based on its agricultural production.
Ladies and gentlemen, those constructions in front of us on the very steep side of the
mountain were Qolqas (food storage) and the reason Incas built there, it was not for security as
everybody thinks, the main reason was that they worked as a fridge to keep their crops fresh and
with dry weather we have the crops could be there for years, saying “Save food for future” with a
lot of natural disasters in the rainy season it was much better to have food, they stored there dry
corn, moraya (dry potatoes), quinoa, etc.
By the way, those terraces around were built in
the third decade of the 15 th century, their characteristics
for its construction were: Avoiding erosion and
increasing the agricultural area, but the main reason was
to maintain the Incas economy. Since the 9 th king started
to lead Incas he thought how could expand and control
vast territory, one of the first law he did, it was that “all
Incas family must have had at least six members
between sons and daughters. Having more people, they
needed more food so it was necessary to build farming
terraces. Also, other characteristics that an Inca terrace
has is that is made in three levels, the first level was made with gravel, the second one with sand,
and the last one (the third one) with rich soil with lots of humus.
Our altitude is almost 9000 feet (foot), it´s an excellent altitude for growing corn in the same way
that pre-Hispanic civilizations (Incas) grew before the arrival of Francisco Pizarro, conquistador of
Peru.

Before reaching the top. Let me change a little bit the HISTORY OF THE INCAS wrote
by Spanish chroniclers in the middle of the 16 th century. It was written that Incas were drunk
people and the only thing they did was: drink and drink all time, but with lots of research doing
nowadays we have another point of view of that impressive civilization. On the other hand, if
we see those farming terraces in front of us, don’t you think, it is a really bad idea to be drunk or
tipsy if they were growing or storing crops in those food storage in the 15th century.
 Let’s come back to the past and imagine those days if a drunk man works as a farmer and
store crops in those food storages, surely there was 100 % of
possibilities he could fall down and if it happened, they couldn´t
find any of his bones together. Anyway, it was a punishment if
somebody was drunk at the time of working. In fact, they had a
law for drunk or tipsy people so if they found somebody drunk, the
first punishment was given for his boss, he was whipped by his
superior because he didn’t teach them that was forbidden to drink
alcohol at the time of working but If the farmer was reoffending,
he was publically punished in a hard way. The punishment was
stepped in his stomach to remove the alcohol from his body.” The
reason for that punishment was not to have any kind of accident at
the time they were growing in those terraces or were building,
temples, trails or bridges, etc. Incas definitely drank when they
were celebrating their religious parties, but they don´t drink alcohol when they were working.

OLLANTAYTAMBO ARCHITECTURE

(Ok guys, Ok group!) Let´s take a little break here. Just breath and relax)

Most people consider this wall as the best they´ve

ever seen in their life and I think they´re right.

Let me tell you a little bit about the Inca´s

architecture. Knowing they lived in an earthquake area where
tremors were common, landslides and mudslides were
frequently in raining seasons. So, Incas built their temples
(houses, cities) to avoid any kind of damage in case those
natural disasters could happen. If we see this beautiful wall,
they always looked in detail as we can see in this gorgeous
trapezoidal double jump doorway. Those stones you see were
not sundials as they are mentioned in some books. Also, if we see this passage there were three
trapezoidal doorways and there was a wall behind you as pretty as this wall, that wall was destroyed
by the enemies of Incas (Cañaris) around 1536 so part of these stones are on the lower side of this
complex. Those protuberances in the stones were not carved because they were used to lift the
blocks and after use were polished with irony stones, sand, and water.
 This wall shows us an imperial architecture style, where
there is not any mortar between stones, characteristics that were
on fashion (on vogue) in the 15th century. To join stones, Incas
interlocked stones with each other. This magnificence wall was
built to avoid landslides, mudslides, or erosion. In fact, those
interlocking stones work as a spider web.

Another characteristic of the Incas architecture in every

Incas city is the orientation of the doorways and niches. For
example, that doorway faces to the summer solstice and those
niches face to the winter solstice. The stones they used to build this place were pink granite.

TEMPLE OF THE SUN

Let´s go to the top we´ll see the Temple in Honor of the Sun and the quarry of this
archaeological site.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the Temple of the Sun. As we can see the temple was in the
process to be built.

In fact, definitely, the idea was to build a semicircular

construction, the main characteristic to erect a Temple of the
Sun in the fifteenth century. If you see carefully there are three
icons which were carved in honor of the Southern Cross
(Chacana) and some others in which Incas carved in the
boulders some kind of felines probably pumas which were
destroyed. In addition, there was a law written around the
middle of the 16th century against pagan icons (divinities)
which said: “Burn everything that you can and destroy
everything that you cannot burn” so those icons were
destroyed to eradicate the ancestral religion of Incas. On the
other hand, the Southern Cross was important for Incas, for
their behavior and their world view. For example, as an orientation point according to the
different position where they are located all over the year told them the different time of the year.
Also, they showed the east when the nightfall comes and the west when the dawn comes. At the
same time, they represented the duality between man and woman, the day and the night, the
clearness and the darkness, the dawn, the nightfall, their four stars represent the four main
elements: earth, fire, water, air. In terms of philosophy, they represented the way how Incas saw
life: see, learn, think, and do it.

THE QUARRY

Incas, surprise the world with those giant boulders on top of this area, even more,
it´s really impressive the way they transported them.
In addition, for materials to build this
complex, Incas used two quarries. For
example, those giant boulders were located
close by the river (Willcamayu) and others in
a place calls Cachiccata (5 miles from this
point or 9 Kilometers) where there were
stones carving in the same way. By the way,
to bring the giant boulders they made ramps
and after that, the stones were dragged and
rolled up with wood beams (wood rollers) or
stone rollers, the smallest ones were brought by hand using manpower, nowadays we can
see stones which were in process to be transported all over the way.
 THE BATTLE OF OLLANTAYTAMBO

At the end of our tour, let me describe the battle of Ollantaytambo that took place around
this town in January 1537 between the forces of the Inca King Manco Inca and the Spanish
conquerors led by Hernando Pizarro helped by enemies of the Incas such as Cañaris, Huancas, and
Chachapoyas.
After living for three years Manco Inca understood a little
about the mentality of Spanish warriors and especially the way they
fought. He knew that the strongest of the Spanish army was in the
power of their cavalry so Incas planned a strategy that consisted of
changing the direction of the river and made an artificial flood so
they did. In fact, Manco Inca ordered to flood the terraces where the
Incas warriors were with the clear idea to defeat the Spanish army
when Hernando Pizarro gave the order to march out and kill the
Incas, his warriors attacked with all their bravery but on the other
side Incas looking the advancing of the Spanish army made believe
them they felt fear and quickly escaped, but everything was
calculated by Manco Inca, it was an Inca trap when the cavalry
reached the terraces and fell down looking that situation the Incas
came back and attacked the Spanish army that was in shock, even Manco Inca was closed to Kill
Hernando Pizarro but the Inca King never imagined the quantity of Incas enemies coming behind
the Spanish to fight against Incas.
Manco Inca and his warriors did not have other option, fight until everybody dies or
retreats, so he took the last option and with just one part of his army retreated to Vilcabamba, the
last Inca´s city where Incas were free until 1572 when the last Inca King called Topa Amaru was
captured.

MORAY
Throughout the Sacred Valley, the Incas left us a great legacy of
archaeological and architectural sites that are preserved to this day. Thanks
to them we have been able to learn much of the history and culture of this
empire that inhabited Peru for around 100 years, between 1438 and 1533.

One of the most fascinating places you can find in the Sacred Valley is Moray,
an archaeological complex used by the Incas as an agricultural research
center.

LOCATION AND CLIMATE

The Archaeological Complex of Moray is located 57 km northwest of Cusco.

As occurs in the rest of Cusco, in Moray there are two different seasons: the
dry season and the rainy season.
During the dry season, the average temperature during the day is 20 ºC,
while at night it drops to 1 ºC. In the rainy season, the days have an average
temperature of 21 ºC and the nights, of 7 ºC. However, in the rainy season,
the roads are muddier and, on some occasions, access can be complicated.

ETYMOLOGY OF MORAY

Like many other names of Cuzco places, the word Moray comes from
Quechua. There are several versions about the origin of this term. On one
hand, there are those who say that it is a contraction of the
words Muyu (circular) and Uruy (downstairs or in the lower part) and on the
other hand, those who attribute it to terms such as Aymoray (corn harvest)
and Moraya (dehydrated potato).

THE IMPORTANCE OF MORAY DURING THE INCA PERIOD

When you walk through the different archaeological sites of Cusco, you will
find the famous Inca platforms, an example of the great architectural
capacity of this empire.

The platforms distributed throughout the Sacred Valley, including those of

Moray, were used as an agricultural research center. Each of them has
a different temperature, so they could plant different types of products. Thus
and according to studies, in Moray the Incas managed to cultivate more than
250 types of vegetables.

To irrigate this entire surface, they implemented complex hydraulic systems.

In addition, at the bottom of the platforms developed a method with which
they managed to store and reuse rainwater.

But some scholars of the Inca Empire speak of Moray as a center also
dedicated to astronomical observation and to the prediction of
meteorological phenomena.

Fascinating, right?

When agronomists want a new potato variety, they go to Peru – and with
good reason. The Indian peoples of the Andes, culminating in the Inca
Empire, had developed 3,000 types of edible potatoes and 150 types of corn.
No one is sure how they did it, but one plausible suggestion is that they did
whatever they did at Moray.

Moray, like Machu Picchu, is more than a little enigmatic. First is its size. The
concave hollow in the ground looks like an ancient Greek amphitheater with
a flat mezzanine like the flat tail of an enormous beaver on one side, but the
area was clearly not designed for dramatic performances. Its round bottom
started in a natural hollow among the mountains – the Incas always worked
in harmony with natural features.

The six central terraces, comprehensively about 100 feet deep, lead to a
circular bottom so well-drained that it never completely floods, no matter
how plentiful the rain. Whether this is due to geologic conditions or man-
made tunneling beneath the Moray floor is unknown.

The concentric terraces are split by multiple staircases that extend upward
like the rays of the sun and enable people to walk from the top to the bottom
of the bowl of Moray. The staircases could be compared to the spokes of a
wheel, except that the Incan people, despite their earthquake-resistant
construction techniques, apparently never discovered the wheel, although
they used log rollers to move giant stones.

What were the terraces for? Low-lying aqueduct channels irrigate the
terraces, so they were clearly agricultural. (The Andean people excelled at
aqueduct construction, although their stone-channeled grooves in the
mountainsides bear little resemblance to the formidable bridge-like
structures the Romans made famous.)

The gradual depths of Moray offer another clue. Temperature variations

between the lowest and highest terraces span 59 degrees F – representing
the difference between coastal sea level farmland and Andean farming
terraces 1,000 meters about sea level. The warmest terraces are nearest the
circular bottom.

Moray was first recognized as some sort of agricultural site by the 1932
Shippee-Johnson archaeological expedition. Archaeologist John Earls
reported that he discovered vertical stones, of a type found in many Incan
ruins, to have cast shadows to deduce the arrival of the equinoxes and
solstices, important to Andean farmers. Edward Ranney, an explorer and
photographer of Andean and American Southwestern Indians, believes that
the Incan people used the terraces to raise their most prized plants, including
the coca leaves used for both medicinal and sacramental purposes.

The widest consensus, however, is that the pre-Columbian Moray – the name
means “dried corn” – was the world’s first agricultural research center,
where Incan priest-scientists experimented with wild vegetable crops to
determine which should be disseminated for domestic production to farmers
with fields all over the Andean region. Pollen samples found in Moray
indicate that a huge variety of crops grew there – perhaps not surprising,
since about 60 percent of the world’s food crops originated in the Andes,
including all known forms of potatoes, the most familiar types of corn, and,
of course, the lima bean, named for the Spanish capital that succeeded
Cusco.

“The principal domesticated plants were distributed to their full climatic

limits within the area wherever they could possibly be grown,” Wendell C.
Bennett and Junius C. Bird wrote in Andean Cultural History, published by the
American Museum of Natural History. This diffusion of non-local plants
obviously didn’t happen by accident. Bennett and Bird report a well-defined
Experimenter Period that began among Quechua-speaking Indians as early as
400 BCE – the great age of ancient Greece and long before the Inca Empire
consolidated the Andean tribes into a nation.

The construction of stone buildings for all sorts of purposes was handled in
group projects, and stones were set without mortar in a way that walls could
shake and rattle without collapsing during earthquakes. Buildings, temples, in
particular, were aligned in harmony with the solstice and equinox.

The Incas had no written language. But the Inca Garcilaso, the son of a
Spanish conquistador and an Andean woman who raised him as a Christian
fluent in both languages, left an account of just how regulated Andean
agriculture was in the middle of the 1500s when the Indians retained their
entire culture, minus the dynasty.

“The fertilizers they used are different according to the region,” Garcilaso
wrote. “In the Cuzco valley and its environs, the corn fields were fertilized
with human manure, which the Indians considered to be matchless for
fertilizing this particular plant … where it is too cold to grow corn, the potato
fields, which extended over more than one hundred and fifty leagues of land,
were enriched with animal manure.

“… Along the entire coast … a distance of over two hundred and fifty leagues,
the only fertilizer used was that of seagulls … islands not far from shore are
covered with such quantities of their droppings that they look like mountains
of snow. Under Inca rule, the birds were protected by very severe laws; it
was forbidden to kill a single one of them, or even to approach their islands
during laying season, under penalty of death.
“… in the other coast provinces … the fields are manured with the heads of
sardines …”
The Incan culture, intensely preoccupied with making the best use of every
acre of ground for the best possible food, had the organizational skills and,
apparently, the knowledge to nurture the most productive crops for each
successive climate belt of the steep Andean fields. Only a signed statement is
lacking to prove beyond a doubt that Moray – “dried corn” – was an
agricultural experiment station.