Qorikancha Museum, Cusco: A Lesson on Inca's Engineering Ingenuity

We had a brief glimpse of a bit of Cusco minutes before we had our lunch at the Green Organic. Many of the building design is a fusion between the Inca and the Spanish style and architecture. Peru, with a population of over 94% Catholics and Christians, it is not hard to see cathedrals and church buildings.

The Church of the Society of Jesus 

Cusco Cathedral.

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A visit to Qorikancha Museum is a lesson on Inca's engineering ingenuity and creativity. Qorikancha  or Coricanca in Quechua language means "Golden Courtyard". The predecessor of the current Museum and Convent of Santo Domigo is the Temple of the Inca Empire built in the mid-15th century. It was said that the walls of the Temple at its apogee were lined with sheets of gold and stored with many treasures. When the Spanish conquered Peru, the Temple was ransacked, looted and destroyed. The gold was stripped and shipped to Spain. On the flattened temple site, the conqueror erected the Convent of Santo Domingo over the original foundation. The Spanish spent a century to build the Convent and Inca stonework was adopted for the construction of the new structure by the conqueror.

The huge courtyard

It is the mastery stonework that distinguishes Inca architecture. The walls of the chambers are built with the formed block stones which are perfectly fitted without any mortar. The precise tampered walls is typical of Inca trapezoidal architecture. The precision of the stonework is so perfect that one just could not tell where one block ends and the next begins.

An illustration of the chamber once lined with gold sheets.

Stones fitted without mortar.


Tapering of walls.

An array of block stones are on display with special formed grooves and holes.  These cavities ensure perfect interlocking of the of block stones to form the wall. Molten bronze is also poured into some of these grooves to provide rigidity against seismic or earthquake forces. 

An open field behind the complex was dug to reveal the original Inca structures.