Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (32 page)

The basins of the Stairway of the Fountains are usually cut out of a single block of granite placed on a level with the floor of the little enclosure into which the women came to fill their
narrow-necked jars. Frequently one or two little niches were constructed in the side walls of the enclosure as a shelf for a cup or possibly for the stoppers of the bottles, made of fibre or twisted bunches of grass. Sometimes a small lip was cut in the stone at the end of the conduit so as to form a little spout, thus enabling the water to fall clear of the back wall of the fountain. In other cases the water would usually pass through the narrow orifice with sufficient force to reach the opening of the jar without the necessity of the carrier dipping the water from the basin. In times of water scarcity, however, we may be sure that the latter method was followed, and that the reason for the sixteen basins was not only in order to permit many jars to be filled at once but to keep the all too precious fluid from escaping. The
azequia
is narrower than any I have seen elsewhere, being generally less than 4 inches in width.

The stone basins are about 30 inches long by 18 inches wide and from 5 to 6 inches in depth. In some places both the basin and the entire floor of the fountain enclosure are made of a single slab of granite. Sometimes holes were drilled in one corner of the basin to permit the water to flow through carefully cut underground conduits to the next basin below. In case of necessity these holes could easily have been plugged up to permit the basin to fill. The conduits run sometimes under the stairway and sometimes at its side. It is perhaps worth noting that the modern Peruvians call these fountains
baos
, baths, but it does not seem to me likely that they were used for this purpose. On account of the rarefied air, the cold, and the rapid radiation, even Anglo-Saxons do not bathe frequently in the Peruvian highlands, and the mountain Indians of today never bathe. It is hardly to be supposed, therefore, that the builders of Machu Picchu used these basins for such a purpose. On the other hand, the Incas were fond of making easy the work of the water carriers and providing them with nicely constructed fountains.

Possibly one reason for abandoning Machu Picchu as a place of residence was the difficulty of securing sufficient water. In the dry season the little springs barely furnished enough water for
cooking and drinking purposes for the forty or fifty Indian workers and ourselves. In the earliest times, when the side of the mountain was forested, the springs undoubtedly did better; but with the deforestation which followed continued occupation and the resultant landslides and increased erosion of the surface soil, the springs must at times have given so little water as to force the city dwellers to bring the water in great jars on their backs for considerable distances.

It is significant that the sherds found near the city gate represent forty-one containers of liquid refreshment as compared with only four cooking pots, nine drinking ladles, and not a single food dish. Evidently the dispensers of
chicha
were stationed here. The results are the more striking when compared with the finds in the south-eastern quarter, where almost as many food dishes were found as jugs.

The largest flat space within the city limits lies in a swale at the widest part of the ridge. This was carefully graded and terraced, and at the time of our visit had recently been cultivated by Richarte and his friends. In fact, one would have to go a good many miles in the canyon of the Urubamba to find an equally large ‘pampa’ at an elevation of not less than 7,000 nor more than 10,000 feet. In other words, this little pampa offered an unusual opportunity to a people accustomed to raising such crops as flourished in Yucay and Ollantaytambo. The fact that it was possible for them also to cover the adjacent hillside with artificial terraces which would increase the potentiality of the region as a food producer was doubtless as important a factor in the selection of this site as the ease with which it could be made into a powerful citadel or a very sacred sanctuary. One of the most carefully constructed stairways leads directly from the chief temples to the little pampa itself. It may have been the pampa where the
huilca
tree grew – the
huilca-pampa
.

There is only one city gate. The northern, or Huayna Picchu side, was not defended by a transverse wall but by high, narrow
terraces built on little ledges which would otherwise give a foothold on the precipices. Near these terraces there is a broad saddle connecting Machu Picchu with a conical hill that is part of a ridge leading to the precipitous heights of Huayna Picchu. South of the saddle, which was once covered with a dense forest, is a rude amphitheatre. It had been terraced and there are five or six different levels, recently used for the small plantations of the Indians. This might very well have been the special garden plot for raising food for the rulers. On the surface of the ground, among the cornstalks, pumpkin vines, and onion patches, we found occasional pieces of pottery.

Looking out on the amphitheatre on the east side are twenty houses. Four of them appear to have contained windows. Two of these have three windows each, the third appears to contain only one, while the fourth is so much in ruins that it is difficult to say whether it has two or three. The houses on this east side of the amphitheatre are nearly all made of stone laid in clay and only roughly finished. In the north-east corner there are two terraces with a marked difference from the others, the stones are much larger and more irregular. Most of the houses are built of rather small stones of a nearly uniform size.

The terraces are built sometimes of large stones and sometimes of small. None of this construction would have taken long. It might well have been done by Manco’s forces after he had moved the religious capital of his realm from Cuzco to this ancient temple of the sun. On the east side of the ancient city there are few, if any, temples, but many well-built dwelling houses and clan groups.

Only one group of houses, that near the south end, appears to have been built with special care; in this the stones are fitted together without clay and the walls are in a beautiful state of preservation. A large group of houses here has three entrances, so we called it the Three-Door Group. In our excavations we found a rubbish pile in front of it, which, with what we collected
inside, yielded pieces of one hundred and fifteen pots. It must have been occupied a long time.

Each of the compounds differs from the others either in the arrangement of its buildings or in some distinctive feature of its architecture. One of them is characterized by very
unusual niches
. In one of its houses there are two niches large enough to
permit an Indian to stand in them, and in the back wall of each niche is a small window at the height of an Indian’s face. The shrine of this group was built on a picturesque crag, the side walls of the temple being keyed into the sloping surface of the rock in a very extraordinary manner. It was done with such skill as to have prevented slipping for centuries. Into the top of the rock the usual stone platform was cut. Above it were three niches each large enough to receive a huddled-up Peruvian mummy. It was the custom in mummifying a body to draw the knees up to the chin so as to make the mummy take up as little room as possible. Mummies had multifarious wrappings and look not unlike small barrels, the final wrapping in some cases consisting of yards and yards of braided rope. Each of these three niches was large enough to receive such a bundle and was provided with a stone bar-hold so that the mummy could be tied in, or taboo sticks could have been fastened in front of each niche to ward off any interference with the mummy. Each niche in turn had three little niches, one on the back wall and one on each of the side walls. The little niches were probably for the reception of offerings, articles presumed to be of value and interest to the departed. A long stone platform carved into the solid rock immediately below the niches was probably intended to receive offerings of food and drink; or the mummies may have been placed there to dry in the sun. It is said that the Incas did not use preservatives as did the Egyptians but relied on the power of the tropical sun to dry the flesh after the removal of the viscera. The mummies had to be sun-dried frequently.

Another clan group was characterized by particularly ingenious stone-cutting. Here the bar-holds of the principal gateway were themselves cut out of the heart of solid granite ashlars. The top of the bar-hold was set into a saucer-shaped depression in a member of the next course above, but the base of the bar-hold formed a part of the ashlar in which it was cut. Access to the bar-hold was gained by cutting a square hole in the centre of the face of the ashlar. Surely it was not only an ingenious but a patient and devoted stone-cutter who would have taken the trouble to make such a neat contrivance for securing artistic
permanency in the bar-holds of his compound. He probably used bronze chisels to carve the deep hole in the ashlar.

Excavations in the principal house of this group yielded pieces of eight pots and brought to light the tops of two granite boulders which originally projected above the level of the floor. These boulders had been carved into useful permanent and unbreakable mortars, or grinding stones, where maize could be ground, and frozen potatoes crushed under the smooth-faced mullers, or rocking stones, which have been in use throughout the central Andes since time immemorial. Near the mortars we actually found one of the ancient mullers which had been rocked here centuries ago. The wife of the chief of this group must have enjoyed a sense of superiority over her neighbours who, in making their corn meal, had no such permanent conveniences built into their kitchens. This group also contains several stone benches. One house had a stone couch, built in a corner, as though someone here preferred not to be always sleeping and sitting on the ground.

In this group is the only example in the city of a large gabled building divided into two sections by a party wall rising to the peak, pierced with three windows. This type, so rare here, is
common enough at Choqquequirau and Ollantaytambo. It was probably a very late development in the art of building. On the rougher, interior walls of some houses of this compound we found some surfaces still covered with reddish clay. It was one of these houses which had been selected a few years ago by Richarte or one of his friends as a good structure to be repaired and roofed for use, but was abandoned, as being too far from water.

One of the stairways in this group is fantastically wedged in between two huge granite rocks which are so close together that it would have been impossible for a fat man to use it at all. In another flight, not only the steps of the stairway but also the balustrades were cut out of a single ledge. Considering the fact that the only tools obtainable for a job of this kind were cobblestones or pebbles of diorite which could be obtained in the bed of the roaring rapids 2,000 feet below, it must have taken somebody a long, long while and a good deal of effort to carve these steps out of the living rock. His work has achieved something as near immortality as anything made by the hands of man.