excavations saqsaywaman

On June 5th, 2001, the National Institute of Culture (INC) of Cusco carried out the opening ceremony for excavations granted to the Anselm Pi Rambla and his team in the area of TIRED STONE, currently known as Chinkana Grande, within the Archaeological Park of Saqsaywaman.

We started the work in this sector because according to many researchers and historians, there are caves beneath the TIRED STONE that connect with the underground labyrinths and galleries mentioned by Garcilaso de la Vega and with the tunnel that leads to Koricancha, the main objective of our work.

Cartographic records, satellite and aerial photography, geological, environmental, and hydraulic studies were carried out, with a logistics team of experts in archaeology, anthropology, geology, archaeoastronomy, and cartographic documentation. The excavations were carried out by personnel trained in the Inter-American Restoration Center and the School of Fine Arts in Cusco.

The first action taken was to protect the excavation area with a perimeter fence and to clear the vegetation from the site. The excavations aimed to penetrate beneath the Piedra Cansada where it is believed the entrance to the tunnels exists.

Inside the TIRED STONE, on the West side, cleaning works were carried out, and it was observed that the first difficulty encountered was eliminating water seepage from the upper part, on the North side, where there is a human settlement from the former hacienda called Fortaleza. Given the geomorphological context of the Cretaceous period, constituted by marine origin limestones, there are natural faults inside the rocks and due to their location, the geographic depression serves as a collector and filter for water coming from the high part, entering the Huaca room through two sectors: the North sector and the North-East sector, where the faults are objectively visible.

To address this, it was decided to remove the water and mud using a daily pump that extracted the accumulated water, and with the technical and specialized manpower of 16 men who, supported by buckets and carts, transported the mud 30 meters away to the South side of the entrance. 20 tons of mud and 100 m3 of water were removed.

To eliminate these leaks, in the North sector, on the slope of the rocky area, three trenches were drawn, each 6 meters long by 1 meter wide. At a depth of 2.30 meters, cracked bedrock was located where water was seeping through and was diverted.

During the process of digging trenches to stop water, a system of terraces in cyclopean style, with cellular typology and padding that had remained hidden, was uncovered. The merit of this pre-Columbian work lies in having projected a design of monumental architecture using the environment, and integrating the environment of the TIRED STONE into a single architectural context with an entire system of terraces, thus avoiding the aggression caused by the strong slope of the terrain. This fact demonstrates that a rock of that magnitude was surrounded and protected within a criterion of conservation and preservation.

Another topic of study to be considered due to these discoveries is that TIRED STONE was articulated from the sector of Rumipunko, on the east side of the esplanade, with a large pedestrian path towards Chinchaysuyo that articulated the City of Cusco with the district of Chinchero, now a road that is still in use by farmers who still use llamas and, during harvest time, transport their agricultural products to the city of Cusco. Another way is the one that enters directly from the Northeast angle of the Muyuc Marca circle towards the system of steps arranged on the south side of the site under study.

All these initial investigations confirm that the site was a great Inca ceremonial center and one of the most important imperial huacas of Cusco.

During the exploration work carried out by Pi Rambla team in the sector, a skull vault was uncovered, and next to it, the presence of the mouth of an Inca-style "Urpu" was observed.

The accidental discovery forced qualified personnel to take charge of its excavation. The work was directed by archaeologist Italo Oberti and supervised by archaeologist Ernesto García Calderón (director of the Saqsaywaman Archaeological Park).

The funerary context corresponds to an adult male aged 45 to 50 years old; the skull is elongated dolichocephalic, a characteristic presented by the Colla ethnic groups (Imbelloni, Falkenburger, Weis, Quevedo, and Pozo), and by placing the lower jaw in front of the feet, it is suggested that the individual was sacrificed in life, and his skeleton shows a picture of arthritic affection due to the total decomposition of the joints of the upper and lower extremities, reaching the bones of the hip, feet, and hands.

Our suggestion that it is a sacrifice is due to the proximity of the burial to the probable entrance to the Piedra Cansada, because of the association of metal pieces that accompany the burial, associated with worked and unworked mollusk shells, plus the presence of a large ceramic object used for storing food and/or clothing, and the company of an infant.

In terms of Andean ideology, the funerary context was deliberately deposited in the place to prevent profane persons from entering the sector, identifying the ossuary as a "Malki", protector of the site.

The opening work in the TIRED STONE area was carried out in the NE sector where some researchers, historians, and current popular tradition claim that below the large stone, there is an entrance to a natural cave that connects to the famous labyrinths located, according to chronicles, inside the great walls of Saqsaywaman.

The work required enormous effort due to the amount of water and mud that accumulated daily due to leaks. It was possible to excavate under the rock to a depth of 18 meters and to reach the very center of the TIRED STONE. We have to mention that in Saqsaywaman, weathering and erosion have worn down the exposed surfaces of the existing limestone masses in the area, to the extent of forming small karstic surfaces on some blocks.

In the TIRED STONE, the dissolution of limestone by rainwater loaded with carbon dioxide and circulating groundwater through fissures and stratification planes during the Pleistocene era has caused natural faults and undercutting of the terrain.
Therefore, we can definitively conclude that there is no cave beneath the TIRED STONE. We categorically discard that this is the sector of the Chinkana Grande mentioned by the first chroniclers, historians, and researchers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

More than 100 years ago, the exact location of the true Chinkana Grande was forgotten and confused with this sector. Its existence was erased from the memory of popular tradition, and its location was moved to this Huaca, one of the most important in Cusco, the area of the TIRED STONE, exactly where we have carried out the excavations mentioned.

Thanks to the investigations carried out and the excavation work, we have been able to reconstruct all these facts and discover the true history of the Chinkana Grande of Saqsaywaman and its exact location within the Archaeological Park.