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Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology

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<< Our Photo Pages >> Ollantaytambo - Ancient Village or Settlement in Peru

Submitted by bat400 on Monday, 20 July 2009  Page Views: 9734

Multi-periodSite Name: Ollantaytambo Alternative Name: Ullantaytampu
Country: Peru Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Cuzco  Nearest Village: Ollantaitambo
Latitude: 13.258S  Longitude: 72.263W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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I have visited· I would like to visit

bat400 visited on 12th Sep 2018 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 5 Access: 4

MartinJEley visited on 13th Apr 2016 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 4 Access: 5 This is an impressive fortress site nestled in the Sacred Valley. The terraces and stonework are easily accessible with something of a climb up the stairs. The view and sun temple both make the climb worthwhile. The explanation from our tour guide of the 'knobs' on the large stones is that their shadows helped track such solar events a solstices.

mfrincu visited on 4th Apr 2015 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 4 Summer and winter solstice markers have been recently identified here.

SolarMegalith visited on 1st Jul 2003 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 4

Tdiver visited on 1st Jan 1991 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 5 Access: 5

DrewParsons Ogham have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3 Ambience: 4.6 Access: 4.4

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Jurgen : Sacred Valley of the Incas, Cusco, Peru. Ollantaytambo is a massive pre-Inca citadel located 50 kilometers from Machu Picchu. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Settlement in the Cuzco Department, Peru.
The architecture of the Inca town is still found within the modern village, in the street plan, courtyard arrangement and monumental doorways. To the east is town itself. To the west and up hill, overlooking the town, are ceremonial sites within the massive fortress. Some of these appear to have been still under construction at the time of the Spanish Conquest, as numerous stones lie along ramps in various states of completion.

In addition to the town itself there are substantial agricultural terraces (with cut stone) on both sides of the Urubamba River, and granary buildings north of the village in the walls of the narrow valleyleading to the Urubamba.

The ceremonial site includes several impressive structures. These include the Temple of the Sun complex with six massive rose colored rhyolite slabs joined with thinner stone panels between them. They were quarried across the river. There is also an incomplete building with fine stonework and Ten Niches, and the Princess Baths with its fountain.

The town was part of the area that came under the control of the Empire during the reign of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (approximately 80 years prior to the Spanish Conquest.) The massive building projects may indicate that this was the site of the estate of a noble or the Supa Inca himself.

Ollantaytambo was also the last stronghold of Manco Inca Yupanqui, the last of the Inca rulers, and the site of the only successful battle against the Spanish, as Manco drove off the troops of Spanish and their allies by using the site as a fortress and flooding the surrounding low areas by releasing a dammed stream into the valley.

Note: Opportunity Knocks - Again - in the Andes. Climate Change May Have Spurred Inca Empire. See Comment.
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Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Jurgen : Sacred Valley of the Incas, Cusco, Peru. Ollantaytambo is a massive pre-Inca citadel located 50 kilometers from Machu Picchu. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Michelledubois : Unusual carved stone at Ollantaytambo . Photo by Brien Foerster. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Ogham : Gateway to the temples. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Ogham : The Inca granaries. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by bat400 : The iconic "doorway within a doorway" feature found in many Inca sites for believed to be of higher status. Seen here in the "Princess Baths" site at Ollantaytambo. Photo by bat400, September 2018.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by bat400 : Structure above the level of the "Temple of the Sun", sometimes referred to as the "Military Site" of the "Lookout" as they face to the Urubamba River instead of the side valley where the town lies. Inca stonework is varied, with the famous tight "ashlar" stonework apparently reserved for structures that appear to be temples and sites used by the nobility. Photo by bat400, September 2018.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by bat400 : View of the Ollantaytambo ceremonial and fortress site from the "Princess Baths" complex. Urubamba Valley, Peru. Photo by bat400, September 2018.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by bat400 : Ollantaytambo - an original Incan doorway in the town (on Calle Horno.) Urubamba River Valley, Peru. Photo by bat400, Sept 2018.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by MartinJEley : The view from one of the lower terraces gives a good sense of the grandeur of the fortress. (2 comments)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Michelledubois : What were these knobs for? They are found all over Peru and Egypt. Photo by Brien Foerster. (2 comments)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by bat400 : The Ollantaytambo "Fortress" above the town, Urubamba River Valley, Peru. Photo by bat400.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by MartinJEley : One of the gates, the sun gate, shows a series of knobs or protrusions similar to those in the sun temple.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by MartinJEley : The knobs or protrusions on the stone wall in the sun temple have been found to show alignments for their shadows that indicate the solstices and other solar events during the year. (1 comment)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by durhamnature : Old photo, from "South American Archaeology" via archive.org Site in Peru

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by durhamnature : Terrace of the Inca's Palace, Ollantaytambo. Image from page 37 of Marie Robinson Wright's The old and the new Peru (1908).

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by DrewParsons : The old terraces photographed in 1995

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by motist : Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by bat400 : Ollantaytambo - a street in the town (Calle Horno) showing the original Incan layout with many original foundations and a drain at the side of the passage. Urubamba River Valley, Peru. Photo by bat400, Sept 2018.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by durhamnature : Photo from archive.org Site in Peru

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by durhamnature : Photo from Hiram Bingham's "In Wonderland of....." via archive.org Site in Peru (1 comment)

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by durhamnature : Inca house near Ollantaytambo, from "South American Archaeology" via archive.org Site in Peru

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by durhamnature : Plan of a house near Ollantaytambo, from "South American Archaeology" via archive.org Site in Peru

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Michelledubois : Strange stone grid pattern at Ollantaytambo. Photo by Brien Foerster.

Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo submitted by Ogham : The moon temple complex. Site in Peru

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"Ollantaytambo" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Re: Opportunity knocks, again, in the Andes by mfrincu on Sunday, 17 May 2015
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I have read some recent papers claiming that this place exhibits some summer and winter solstice markers. It seems that in winter a ray of light passes by Viracocha's face and the Sun temple and hits some land mark in the valley. In the summer a similar ray of light enters from the other valley leading to Pisac.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ISPAr.XL5..273H
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Re: OpportuniTemple of the Condor at Ollantaytamboty knocks, again, in the Andes by Andy B on Sunday, 05 December 2010
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Temple of the Condor at Ollantaytambo: Located at the western edge of the Ollantaytambo archaeological site, the Temple of the Condor is a massive, seemingly sculpted structure in the shape of a condor. There are many carved niches similar to those at the Chinkana, and stairways that seemingly go nowhere. Again, this is dated by Jesus Gamarra at being several thousands of years old.
http://www.livinginperu.com/travel-1801-cusco-five-cusco-travel-tips-from-peru-historian-guide
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Opportunity knocks, again, in the Andes by bat400 on Monday, 20 July 2009
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Submitted by coldrum ---

The last time global warming came to the Andes it produced the Inca Empire. A team of English and U.S. scientists has analyzed pollen, seeds and isotopes in core samples taken from the deep mud of a small lake not far from Machu Picchu and their report says that "the success of the Inca was underpinned by a period of warming that lasted more than four centuries."

The four centuries coincided directly with the rise of this startling, hyper-productive culture that at its zenith was bigger than the Ming Dynasty China and the Ottoman Empire, the two most powerful contemporaries of the Inca.
"This period of increased temperatures," the scientists say, "allowed the Inca and their predecessors to expand, from AD 1150 onwards, their agricultural zones by moving up the mountains to build a massive system of terraces fed frequently by glacial water, as well as planting trees to reduce erosion and increase soil fertility.

"They re-created the landscape and produced the huge surpluses of maize, potatoes, quinua and other crops that freed a rapidly growing population to build roads, scores of palaces like Machu Picchu and in particular the development of a large standing army."

No World Bank, no NGOs.
The new study is called "Putting the Rise of the Inca within a Climatic and Land Management Context" and was prepared by Alex Chepstow-Lusty, an English paleo-biologist working for the French Institute of Andean Studies, in Lima. Alex led a team that includes Brian Bauer, of the University of Illinois, one of today's top Inca-ologists. The study is being published in Climate of the Past, an online academic journal. Alex spends a lot of time in Cuzco and he told me the other day that the report "raises the question of whether today's global warming may be another opportunity for the Andes."

The core samples from the sediment of the little lake, Marcacocha, in the Patakancha valley above Ollantaytambo, show that there was a major cold drought in the southern Andes beginning in 880 AD lasting for a devastating century-plus through into 1000AD. This cold snap finished off both the Wari and the Tiahuanaco cultures which had between them dominated the southern Andes for more than a millenium.

It was at this same time that the Classic Maya disappeared in Yucatan. It was also a time, on the other side of the Pacific when major migrations from East Asia took place into Polynesia, an indication of a major Niño event; a Niño sees western Pacific currents switch to flow from West to East.

Core samples from glaciers and from the mud beneath lakes in the Andes, the Amazon and elsewhere have built up a history of the world's climate and the message is crystal clear. It is that changes have taken place in the past, during the six or seven thousand years of our agriculture-based civilizations, that are just as big as the ones we are facing from today's CO2 warming.

The message may be, too, that climate change is especially forceful in the Andes. Here we are, sandwiched thinly between the world's biggest ocean and the world's biggest jungle. The peaks are so high that they have had until just a few years ago deep ice on or near the Equator.
The valleys and surrounding hills have formed the roof of the human world for at least three millennia, according to Alex Chepstow-Lusty's core samples. Nowhere else do millions of people live at or even near 4,000ms above sea level where it is cold, but getting warmer.

For more, see Living in Peru.
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