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 15 th
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 15 th 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.