Qorikancha

The Inca Temple of the Sun, once sheathed in gold; the Spanish built the Santo Domingo convent on its flawless curved stone wall.

After Spanish soldiers conquered the Inca in the 1500s, they tore down most of the temple. Its finely cut stone walls were kept and used as the foundation of the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo, which was built on top in the 1600s. So today you can see two worlds in one building, Inca stonework below and a Spanish church above. Visitors come to see the smooth curved wall that has held firm for centuries.

How did the Inca build it?

The Inca used ashlar masonry, which means they cut stones into neat blocks of similar size and fitted them together. Stone with even a small crack or flaw was not allowed. This was very hard work, and it showed how many workers the emperor could command. The walls had no earth or lime mortar to hold them. They were so well made that, as an early writer noted, the joints were almost invisible.

Why was it called the golden temple?

In the Inca period, the walls were covered with sheets of gold, and the courtyard held golden statues. The ruler Pachakuti Inca Yupanqui added gold plates and gold vessels, and he placed the mummies of seven earlier Incas on a golden bench. Spanish writers called the riches almost beyond belief. In 1533, when the Spanish demanded gold as a ransom for the emperor Atahualpa, much of that gold was taken from this temple.

On the globe

The model shows the Inca Temple of the Sun with its flawless curved stone wall, with the Spanish convent of Santo Domingo built above it.