May 9th, 2018 - Jakob Kerr

Today we got to visit and tour the Plaza de Armas in Cusco Peru, which is the center of the town and where a lot of tourists go. It is a beautiful place to be and it is hard to describe in words. However, the thing I’ve been most excited about on this trip to Cusco is the Incan architecture. It’s hard for me to comprehend how they were able to make these structures and keep these stone blocks so perfectly straight and left little to no gaps between them. With most Inca walls there is no grout or glue holding them together. They carved out slots and channels into the rocks to put them together, like Lego, so that there would be no need for glue and that if there were to be an earthquake the individual blocks would be locked together. 

Earthquake protection and longevity was an important aspect of building these structures. The doorways, buildings, and windows were all trapezoid shaped so that the bottom was wider than the top. This makes it harder for things to fall or be damaged by movement. This design is a key reason to why these structures have lasted so long. The trapezoid shape has been said to belong to the Inca people because of their extensive use of the shape in their structures. 

I’ve always been fascinated with ancient civilizations and how they’ve worked and survived. The town of Cusco is still built around this temple and it hasn’t been destroyed, and this gives Cusco this culture that you don’t find in America. I find it sad to think that I don’t really have a culture of my own to celebrate such as Qoricancha or the architecture that the Inca built. So far this is the place that I haven’t wanted to move on with the tour just so I can take more pictures and be in awe. 

Where we got to see these walls was the Qoricancha, The Temple of the Sun, and it was the most important temple of the Inca civilization. Half of this temple was built by the Inca civilization, and then the Spanish conquered the land but instead of completely destroying the structures, they built over it and preserved some of it. The most interesting aspect of that dynamic is that you can see when the Spanish started to build walls over or next to an Inca wall because the craftsmanship was nowhere near the same, yet they were the ones who were able to conquer. 

How perfectly flat and how well the stone blocks fit together 

Comparison between Inca built walls and Spanish built walls

Balcony of Qoricancha looking onto the main road in Cusco, Ave El Sol (Avenue of the Sun) 

Use of trapezoids in Inca structures