Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The stonework is beyond my comprehension: the size of the single pieces, the precision of the cutting, the zillions of man-hours it must have taken. Walls are laid up without mortar (except that added later in clumsy repairs by Europeans) with fit that would make an Inca proud. Here are the eaves of the bathhouse surrounding the reservoir. One stone has broken, allowing a cross-sectional view. A root about 6” thick extends to the right over the lintel, with this complicated curved cross section of about 4” maximum thickness cantilevered outward. How do you cut that without breaking 90% of them in the process? As you see in the background, most of them are still there after centuries.

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