Cumba Mayo: a high-tech Inca waterway in Peru

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-02 02:33

Not far from the city of Cajamarca in Peru, there is a town called Cumbe Mayo. There, in the rock massifs, a small water channel was cut, which in some places has a very unusual shape. The canal or aqueduct is located at an altitude of 3300 m and is approximately 8 km long.

The channel has been cut into the rock. In some places there are turns that are not smooth as in rivers, but have a bend of 90 degrees.

Why it was necessary to make such sharp turns for water flows? It is possible that the Incas (or pre-Inca cultures) found this form of the channel aesthetic. Or maybe they repeated the shape of the fault, slightly increasing it in width. But this is not the most important question. The more important question is how and how did they do it? How were such smooth edges cut down in the rock? I have an answer, I will write briefly about my hypothesis.

The quality of the channel bed in the stone is very high. This is exactly cutting, not gouging something.

To begin with, I propose to see where this place is, from where the water flows. The territory is a landscape with such stone forests, outliers, pillars.

According to my hypothesis, these rocks were squeezed out of the bowels as plastic, like mineral tuffs. At one time, simultaneously with their exits, powerful outpourings of water masses occurred, leading to floods in various localities throughout the Earth. Powerful outflows of water occurred simultaneously with the outflows of these outliers. A huge number of similar formations are found in Eastern and Southern Siberia.

So, residual phenomena in such places are water outflows in the form of springs, streams, small rivers. In Siberia, from almost every mountain where such outliers are found, streams and rivers flow down from the tops and slopes. And they are always full-flowing. In this magazine I have more than a dozen articles on this topic. For example, this loop: MUD VOLCANOES - THE CAUSE OF THE FLOOD. Part 8

The photo on the left shows traces of erosion in the rocky outlier. It was from him that water once flowed down, making such a "furrow". Now the process is slowly declining, most likely the volume of water is decreasing every year.

This is confirmed by the photos below. On one of them there is water in the canal, and on the other there is no more water. Either the canal periodically dries up, or there is very little water coming out of the bowels at the present time.

The fact that the streams of water were previously more powerful, the canal was full-flowing, says this bridge:

Everything was silted up and overgrown with grass. Once upon a time life was in full swing here, apparently. And people could leave because the water left in the canal.

Along the canal, in some places on the stones there are applied patterns and petroglyphs:

Those. were the ancient masters not very busy with work and knocked out these bas-reliefs? Most likely, it was a matter of ten minutes. I believe that the breed was still in a plastic state and could be easily worked even with any piece of wood. The workers cut the canal with some sort of saws and took out the blocks. And on some of the stones in the breaks they were engaged in creativity.

A short video in the view of the channel:

Where was the water diverted? I think, for irrigation of fields and for household needs. The water from the bowels is spring water, you could even drink it. It was something like an aqueduct.

Here are briefly my answers to the questions: how did you cut it out? Where does the water in the canal come from? What is the channel for? If you have any thoughts, write in the comments.