♦Livre♦

Inca Quarrying and Stonecutting - Jean-Pierre Protzen
1. 2 carrières :
-Kachiqhata (Cachiqata) : Granite rouge pour Ollantaytambo à 4km au sud-ouest
-Rumiqolqa : Andésite pour Cuzco

4. At Rumiqolqa, in contrast to Kachiqhata, one encounters at all sites quarrying in the proper sense, the rock is broken off a face or extracted from pits. Much of the area is still worked today, so that much of the evidence of ancient exploitation has now been obliterated. I did succeed in finding one well preserved quarry pit in an inaccessible area of the central quarries. It shows hardly any evidence of modern quarrying activity, although modern quarrymen are closing in fast. I named this pit the Llama Pit from two petroglyphs of Hamas that I ound on a rock face in the pit. The pit is about 100 m. long, 60 m. wide, and between 15 and 20 m. deep (figs. 8, 9). The outstanding feature of the Llama Pit is the 250 or so eut stones, finished and ready to be shipped, lying around 4 major extraction areas (fig. 10).