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Description of Machu Picchu |
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The crypt of the Condor |
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The previously mentioned flight of steps on the left begins in an approximately rectangular open space whose closure wall has three hornacinas over a rock. This covers a small cave which we can also enter from outside the complex. Behind the closure wall some stairs carved in the rock go north, toward the upper part of the complex where a great white rock, leaning to the west, carved and with a flat surface hangs over the precipice which faces the eastern slope of Machu Picchu. It is about an impressive rock, visible from any point in the sanctuary. Around it there are two chambers. The eastern one, two-storied, with two doors which look south on the lower floor and north on the upper floor, has lost its east wall, which, together with the rock which supported it, has fallen down the precipice. The western one, which rather seems to be a patio, allows seeing part of the rock and its north wall |
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has an extensive window. This looks to the street where the doors open to the aqllawasi and to this complex. In the whole upper section we find great rocks which have been considered, without any relevant argument, "sacrificial stones".
At some 15 m from the entrance portal with double jambs and with installations on its interior face for securing it, across from it and at some four steps below those which go down to the great rocks, we encounter another portal with a double jamb with installations on its inside face for securing it. This signifies this step was restricted including to those who had already come through the entrance portal, who could have kept on to the four blocks of houses below and to the dry moat which closes the citadel on the south. This portal is impressive. It opens first into a roofed vestibule, rectangular, with niches in all of its walls and a wide opening that communicates with the patio of the Crypt. The view from this space is intercepted by a great carved rock, smooth on its north face and carved on its south face. It is in the center of the irregular patio of the Condor.
Right here, almost at ground level, we find a flat rock, sculptured in the shape of a scalene triangle, which is described as representing a condor. The north angle of the rock could simulate the head of the condor seen from above, surrounded by a ring, supposedly the ruff characteristic of these birds. The beak rests on a kind of fountain inside the ring, whose hole has been interpreted as a drain for the blood from the sacrifices that were carried out in this place; a subject that is nothing more than a product of the imagination.
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pag. 1
- 2 - 3
- 4
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