Sacsayhuamán

Three terraced walls above Cusco at 3,701 metres, built dry with no mortar, out of limestone blocks weighing from 128 to nearly 200 tonnes, fitted so closely that a sheet of paper will not go between many of them. The stone came about 35 km from Rumicolca. Spanish chroniclers recording Inca oral history put the building in the fifteenth century across the reigns of Pachacuti, Topa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac. After the siege of Cusco in 1536 the Spanish took the site apart for building material, and a chronicler wrote that there was not a house in the city not made from this stone, which is why what stands is the part too big to carry away. UNESCO listed Cusco and Sacsayhuamán together in 1983. Inti Raymi is held here every 24 June.