Sunday 25 December 2016

Ollantaytambo

The last town in Peru that the Spanish conquered.  It both is and was a stop on the trail to Machu Picchu.  The Inca started to work on the town and fortifications in the early 1400's and were still working on the place when the Spaniards rolled through and forced a change of government.

The place still has a lot of the bones of the Inca layout, with a large number of walls intact in the town as well as the underlying web of water channels, many of which are underground.  I did not take any pictures in the town, but did walk through and I can state that there are very few places where you cannot hear the rush of swift moving water.

The historic site climbs up the side of a mountain and the Spanish must have been extremely happy that the Inca had no firearms.  The place was not designed to withstand cannon, but the steep grades and limited approaches would have made storming it without firearms very intimidating.






Even after getting up the terraces, there was still a lot of steep going, and that was also where the real fortification started.





In addition to the the following trail leading East-ish along the mountain overlooked the two main approaches, complete with a small redoubt designed to allow spear throwers decent protection while giving them a commanding place to harass invaders from the side and slightly higher.

The main flaw from a military perspective of the fortification was the lack of reliable water.









The base of the mountain shows how the Inca venerated the basis of all life  The temples are dedicated to the sun, water and earth, with echoes as well of past present and future.

The following picture has a shaped rock face on it, with five projections allowing to track the movement of the sun and the shadows cast by four of the projections detail the arrival of the equinoxes and solstices.  The lone knob on the left has it's shadow touch the long ledge below at noon.

The faces of the lower mountain show the quarry marks, along with partially finished stone.









Also packed into this area were a number of places for showers, where one would kneel in the pool and duck one's head into the stream.  Some of these showers were for ritual cleaning before entering the temples, but some were also for day to day use.  One was specially constructed by the local regional governor to impress and help woo a princess, thus it is named the princess's shower.







Both questions and comments are welcome.




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