At Sacsayhuamán above Cusco, Peru, giant stones with many angled sides lock together without mortar. Some weigh over 100 tonnes. The walls have survived centuries of earthquakes.
Truth label: Established. Strong evidence and broad agreement among experts.
Go deeper
How they did it
Experiments suggest masons shaped stones by pounding them with harder hammerstones, testing the fit and grinding again.
Built to move
The irregular shapes and slightly inward-leaning walls help them shift and settle back during quakes.
Learn
- Who built it. The Inca built it in the 1400s. Spanish conquerors later took stones from it to build Cusco's churches.
Test yourself
What holds Sacsayhuamán's stones together?
A precise fit. The stones were shaped to lock together without mortar.
Sources
Swipe more like this
CurioUS is a feed you steer. Pick what you're curious about and every swipe tunes what comes next.
Open this card in the appMore from Hidden History
- Someone built a stone temple 6,000 years before Stonehenge.
- Woolly mammoths were still alive when the Great Pyramid was built.
- 9,000 years ago, a town of thousands had no streets. People walked on the roofs.
- The first writing wasn't poetry. It was receipts.
- The Library of Alexandria probably didn't burn in one great fire.
- Roman concrete heals its own cracks.