Early in July 2012 the Ministry of Culture of Peru invited a group of Russian geophysicists to perform a research on the archaeological complex Sacsayhuaman, namely, on the soil problems of the latter.

In the course of this work interesting historical and archaeological data were collected and a lot of photo and video coverage was done and used for production of a documentary called "The Living Stones of Sacsayhuaman" that you can view now (in Russian) in the opened access.

The added value of the video format of these "field" data is that it allows to unveil the unique character of the buildings of the ancient Incas both from the scientific point of view and from the viewpoint of independent researchers.

During the georadar investigation of Saksaywaman archaeological site there was selected a number of specimento be used for further research. The samples are represented by the material of construction blocks, rock formations, processed surfaces of the “cut” rocks and other various formations which excite the curiosity in terms of their composition and origin.

The mandatory prerequisite for the selection was the integrity of the monument; the specimens were collected solely in the areas where the integrity of the construction material was already interrupted by existing cracks.
These specimens were sent for analysis into the different laboratories. The official research is, however, available only from the laboratory of the Institute of Tectonics and Geophysics of FEB RAS in Khabarovsk (where the most exhaustive set of specimens was delivered, though only 10 of them were investigated so far) and from the laboratory of the Geology of Oil and Gas faculty of the South Federal University where a fragment of a processed construction block from the archaeological site was researched.

In recent years the employees of Sacsayhuaman archaeological complex witnessesed a number of destructive processes taking place at the certain sites of the complex. These consisted of the large cracks coming forth in the main walls, the shift of the stone blocks and recession of the walls (see the Drawings).

Such trend may lead to an irreversible and unrecognizable change of the complex which remains to be one of the most significant monuments of the heritage of Inca. That's why this issue raised a need to conduct a research to define the reasons of these continuous destructive processes taking place at Saksaywaman complex. Despite the state of art technologies of the modern geology and geophysics, it was difficult to find the one which allows to have a deep look into the soil and to find out the clear causes of the adverse processes influencing the constructions of the complex.

Andrey Zhukov, Candidate of Historical Sciences

In the north-western suburb of the ancient capital of the Inca Empire, Cusco, there’s a steep hill floating up above the ancient city. It has the name of Sacsayhuaman. In the language of Quechua – the language that was spoken by the patrials of the Empire in the ancient times – this means “a satiated hawk”. This language is still widely used by 12 million of the citizens of the South America.

Article in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuaman

Saksaywaman, Sasawaman, Saksawaman, Sasaywaman, Saqsaywaman or Saksaq Waman (Quechua waman falcon or variable hawk, hispanicized spellings Sacsayhuamán, Sacsayhuaman, Sacsahuaman, Saxahuaman and others) is a walled complex on the northern outskirts of the city of Cusco, Peru, the former capital of the Inca Empire. Like many Inca constructions, the complex is made of large polished dry stone walls, with boulders carefully cut to fit together tightly without mortar.

The site, at an altitude of 3,701 m, was added as part of the city of Cusco to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983.