Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/54

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32
EXTENT OF THE MEGALITHIC EMPIRE

collect native traditions, tells us that the people came from the south. Betanzos also makes the civilisers advance from the south. Salcamayhua says that all the nations of Peru came from the south, and settled in the various regions as they advanced. Molina has the same tradition. Montesinos mentions a great invasion from the south in the very earliest times, later the records tell of the arrival of an army from Tucuman, and he tells of a third great invasion from the south when his 62nd King was reigning. On this point there is practical unanimity. The great population, of the existence of which the Tiahuanacu ruins bear silent testimony, represents a series of movements from the south.

The Tiahuanacu ruins also point to extensive dominion, and to ascertain its extent and locality we must seek for similar cyclopean work, and for similar masonic skill in carving, in other parts of Peru.

In Cuzco there is a cyclopean building in the Calle del Triunfo, with a huge monolith known as the 'stone of twelve corners.' Some portions of the ancient remains at Ollantay-tampu are megalithic work, as well as the 'Inca-misana' and 'Ñusta-tiana,' hewn out of the solid rock. But the grandest and most imposing work of the megalithic builders was the fortress at Cuzco. The Sacsahuaman hill, on which the fortress stood overlooking the city, was practically inaccessible on two sides, and easily defensible on another. But