Theme · 6 sitesThe cyclopean
Mega-blocks fitted without mortar, in tight joints — across a continent and a millennium.
Why the same obsession with the perfectly fitted colossal block, among peoples with no known link?
A theme gathers cases that overlap — it asks the question, it asserts no cause. Each site keeps its status and its sources.
No accepted answerSacsayhuamán
Blocks of 100+ tons, joints fitted to the millimeter, without mortar or iron. How?
No accepted answerBaalbek
The trilithon: three 800-tonne blocks in a wall. In the quarry, the "Stone of the Pregnant Woman" weighs 1,000.
DebatedOllantaytambo
Six 50-tonne monoliths transported across a river: how?
DebatedTiwanaku (Tiahuanaco)
Capital of an Andean empire at 3,850 meters of altitude, built with andesite transported 90 km from Lake Titicaca. A 17,000-year date brandished for a century — refuted. Another, Bayesian, places the start at ~AD 110: the empire begins where it was once thought to be antediluvian.
DebatedQorikancha (Cuzco)
The Inca Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, whose walls survived two major earthquakes (1650, 1950) that razed the Spanish convent built on top of it. The dry-stone Inca masonry — blocks that 'dance' without breaking — has been formally modeled as a seismic-resistant system.
ConsensusTwelve-Angled Stone
Twelve angles cut into a 6-tonne block, fitted without mortar — no blade fits between the stones.