276 BUREAU OP AMERICAlSr ETHNOLOGY [bull. 60 



^^'e rtnn.'iinod all day on the top of the i-ange. Tlie close forest in which we 

 hud been hiborin.i; made us feel more sensibly the beauty of the extended view. 

 On the top of the range was a quarried block. With the chay stone found 

 among the ruins, and supposed to be the instrument of sculpture, we wrote our 

 names upon it. They stand alone, and few will ever see them. Late in the 

 afternoon we returned, and struck the river about a mile above the ruins, 

 near a stone wall with a circular building and a pit, apparently for a reservoir. * 



The ancient builders of Peru and Bolivia, the Inca peoples, have 

 bequeathed to us evidence of remarkable enterprise in this field, rival- 

 ing in the work accomplished the greatest achievements of the 

 builders of the Old World. Squier has given us a most elaborate 

 and graphic account of the great quarries of Cuzco: 



This l)()lson is separated from that of Oropesa, wliich is only an extension of 

 tliat of Cuzco, by a narrow ridge or pass, which formed the 

 [Qiinrrios of Cu7ao] Southern limit of the dominions of the first Inca, and where 

 stand the massive remains of the works by which it was de- 

 fended Iroiii aggression from the southward. Before reaching these remains we 

 come to great projecting masses of tracliytic and basaltic rock, through which 

 the road oi" jiath winds tortuously. Here was one of the pi'inci])al quarries of 

 the Incas, and lience was taken by far I lie greater part of the stones used in the 

 construction of the edifices of Cuzco. All around are immense heaps of stone 

 chipi)ings, covering more than half a mile square, and among these are scat- 

 tered, in all directions, blocks of stone of every size and in every stage of 

 progress, from the rough fragment just broken from the parent mass to the 

 elaborately finished block ready to be put in its assigned place in a building. 

 Here are the rough stone huts of the quarrymen and also the more pretentious 

 dwelling of the master workman, or overseer, who built a little wall around his 

 house and a terrace in front and otherwise evinced taste and love of comfort. 



The wliole aspect of things is familiar, and we might readily imagine ourselves 

 in an abandoned quarry at home. Although many of the worked stones have 

 been taken away since the Conquest, yet enoiigh remain to show that the quar- 

 ries were in full operation at the time of their final interruption, and that the 

 Incas were still actively engaged in enlarging and beautifying their capital. 

 I do not attach much importance to the statements of Cieza de Leon and others 

 that many of the royal palaces and temples of the empire, as far distant as 

 Quito, were wholly or in part built with stones transported from Cuzco, thereby 

 obtaining sf)me degree of sanctity or reverence, as did the soil of the Campo 

 Santo of Pisa, from the fact that some of it was brought from the Holy Land. 

 The trachytes of which the edifices of Cuzco are mainly biult are by no means 

 unconnnon throughout Peru ; and the coincidence in materials in any given struc- 

 ture with those of anotlier by no means implies that these materials were 

 obtained from a common source. 



Although there is no direct evidence remaining in the quarry as to the man- 

 ner in which the stones were dressed after being extracted from their beds, 

 yet it seems pretty clear that most of them were picked oi- hannnered into 

 shape with a pointed instrument of a hannuer before passing under the chisel. 

 Of the manner in which the stones were separated from the natural rock there 

 are hei-(>, as in other places, abundant illustrations. Excavations were made, 

 where possible, under the masses of rock, so as to leave some portions of them 

 impending. A groove was then cut in the upper surface on the line of desired 



1 St<'i'lu'ns, Iiifidont.s of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, i, pp. 

 140-147. 



