Sacsayhuaman

Sacsayhuaman is a walled ceremonial and military complex on a hill overlooking Cusco, Peru, built by the Inca beginning in the fifteenth century from enormous, precisely fitted polygonal limestone blocks, some weighing more than one hundred tons, stacked without mortar so exactly that a knife blade cannot be inserted between many of the joints. Its most striking feature is a set of three parallel zigzagging terrace walls, a design thought to combine defensive strength with religious symbolism. Spanish colonists later dismantled much of the site's upper stonework to build churches and houses in Cusco, and the surviving lower walls remain among the most visited examples of Inca megalithic construction. It forms part of the UNESCO-inscribed City of Cusco World Heritage Site.