Photos of Kalasasaya

The Door of the Puma (Puma Punku), Tiwanaku, Bolivia. by ER's Eyes

Across the railway line southwest of the Tiwanaku site, we saw the excavation site of Puma Punku. In this temple area megaliths weighing more than 130 tons have been discovered. Like Kalasasaya and Akapana, there is evidence that Puma Punku was begun with one type of material and finished with another; part was constructed of enormous sandstone blocks and, during a later phase of construction, notched and jointed basalt blocks were added. Note also, in the distance of the site’s northern boundary, the sukakollo, a highly sophisticated system of terraced irrigation. *** In assembling the walls of Pumapunku, each stone was finely cut to interlock with the surrounding stones. The blocks were fit together like a puzzle, forming load-bearing joints without the use of mortar. One common engineering technique involves cutting the top of the lower stone at a certain angle, and placing another stone on top of it which was cut at the same angle. The precision with which these angles have been used to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry. Many of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones. Much of the masonry is characterized by accurately cut rectilinear blocks of such uniformity that they could be interchanged for one another while maintaining a level surface and even joints. However, the blocks do not have the same dimensions, although they are close. The blocks were so precisely cut as to suggest the possibility of prefabrication and mass production, technologies far in advance of the Tiwanaku’s Inca successors hundreds of years later. Some of the stones are in an unfinished state, showing some of the techniques used to shape them. They were initially pounded by stone hammers, which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand. Tiwanaku engineers were also adept at developing a civic infrastructure at this complex, constructing functional irrigation systems, hydraulic mechanisms, and waterproof sewage lines.
Kalasasaya is a tourist attraction, one of the Monuments and memorials in Comunidad Khasa Achuta, बोलिविया. It is located: 2.7 km from Tiahuanaco, 169 km from La Paz, 850 km from Cochabamba. Read further
Post a comment
Arrange By:
There are no comments yet. Maybe be you will be the first one to post useful information for fellow travellers? :)

Tourist attractions shown on this image

Important copyright information