♦Livre♦

Inca Quarrying and Stonecutting - Jean-Pierre Protzen
3. Often work was started on a block before the ramp to it had been finished. Evidence of this is particularly obvious at the end of the highest ramp in the South Quarry (survey point 115 in fig. 1), where two blocks, one 4.5 x 2.5 x l. 7 m., the other 6.5 x 2. 7 x 2.1 m., raised on working platforms not yet connected to the ramp, are in a state of partial dressing. The cutting marks on these and other blocks are intriguing. They are very similar to those found on the unfinished obelisk at Aswan, and the technique involved must not have been very different from the one used by the Egyptians, who used balls of dolerite to pound away at the work piece until it had the desired shape (figs. 6, 7; Engelbach, 1923). In 1959, Outwater reported that "Very few tools are in evidence at the site [Kachiqhata].
There were some hammer-stones of diorite but very few picks or wedges" (Outwater, 1959, p. 28). And indeed, tools are rare at this site. It was not until a subsequent visit to Kachiqhata in 1983 that I did discover three hammerstones, one of quartzite, one of chert, and one unidentified to date, at the starage yard near Muyupata. Since I shall argue below that there is only very scant evidence that the Incas split rocks with the aid of wedges, I am rather skeptical about Outwater's claim that he found picks and wedges.

4. But other aspects, in particular the construction of the ramps, associate this quarry with the other two. The one surprising feature at the West Quarry are the many long thin blocks in various
stages of production lying just off the main ramp. Sorne of these are almost 7 m. long, and have a cross section of only 40 x 40 cm.  How these "needles" have been extracted remains something of a puzzle. From the way some "needles" are strewn about, it is evident that long blacks with large cross sections have been split repeatedly into blacks with ever smaller cross sections, but how? There are no identifiable tool marks on the work pieces, no traces of wedge hales, nor any signs of channeling. The only thing I can assert with confidence is that these "needles" have not been pounded as the big blacks have in the North or South quarries.What were these "needles" used for? I have been told by local informants, as was Squier before me, that these "needles" served in the construction of the bridge over the Urubamba River. This explanation is doubtful, as the respective spans from either bank to the still existing pier in the river are about 20 m. and 30 m. wide. Curiously enough, there are no abandoned "needles" on the ramps leading from the quarries to the construction site. The only blocks at Ollantaytam bo that fit that description at all are the lintels over the doorways in the walls of Manyaraki at the entrance to the "fortress."

♦Mégalithe♦

Obélisque d'Assouan et Boules de Dolérite

Exp. : "Attaque au feu" sur Granite d'Assouan