Qorikancha

Above is my favorite street in Cusco, Avenue del Sol. Despite the awesome view in both directions, this street seems to be quiet compared to some of the others. And located on this street is perhaps the coolest museum in Cusco, the Qorikancha museum. I enjoyed seeing the mixture of spanish influence built on top of Inca ruins. This is done with great detail at the Qorickancha but as you can see below, new buildings have been built using the base of old Inca structures all around Cusco. 

 

One thing that I noticed while looking down at some of the stone walls at the Qorikancha was the slant in the wall. I wonder why the Incas felt the need to build slanted walls. Basic architecture tends to always use perpendicular, parallel and perfectly erect designs, but this picture of a model at the site museum shows Incan architecture was anything but basic. 

It is hard to make out from the above picture but again we see trapezoidal doorways as we saw at Pachacamak. Incan architecture and stone work once again blew me away, but even more than that I was perplexed on how such large stones could have been hoisted into the correct position. I estimated one piece to be 5 feet long, 2 feet deep and 1 foot hight. I have no way of knowing the weight of such a piece, but I would be interested in seeing the pulley and lever system that must have been utilized to complete the job. 

Below is a ceramic pot made by the Inca now resting at the sight museum. In my Geometry Essay last week, I questioned the functionality of such a pot. My only reason for building a pot, that continually got smaller until it reached a point that could not be used to balance the pot, was for aesthetics. But after examining such a pot again, I realized two little knobs near the top of the pot. The museum description of the pot pointed out that these little knobs were used for attaching a rope so the pot could be carried over the shoulder. I still wondered why the pot would need an upside down cone shape base. It still might just be for looks, and the idea that such a design is used to maximize volume is unlikely. I am still confused by this pot, but when carrying this pot the base would make no difference in functionality. But pouring from this pot would be easier than a pot with a square base. 

Not every skull was as disturbing as the abnormally shaped ones. The skull seen below was the recipient of surgery. Incas had knowledge of fluid build up after trauma to the head which was most likely caused during battle. Stefan Anitei describes 66 out of 411 Incan burial sites found near Cusco had some sort of hole cut near the skull. He also reports that by the 14th century, survival rates of such surgery grew to 90%. 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Incas-Performed-Complex-Skull-Surgeries-85558.shtml