After six months of negotiations between the Community of San Martin de Porras and Poqen Kanchay, the "real" work began.  There was an ancestral ceremony called a despacho, honoring the place and the work that was to begin.  This was facilitated by a native shaman and attended by many in the community as well as representatives from Poqen Kanchay and the National Institute of Culture (NIC) in Cusco. (Photos)

The next day, we started the cleansing of the terraces.  This consisted of removing the bushes and some of the trees that had grown on the terrace and into the walls, clearing away many thousands of square meters of dirt so that the terraces could really be seen, and piling the found stones together in preparation for the restoration process. (photo 1)  Through this work, we have found many new walls, which were buried, and unknown to exist.  These reveal the importance of this site to be more then what we had previously thought.  These new finds also reinforce our belief in the potential of this center as a very prominent tourist site. 

Just through this initial cleansing, we have found that the terrace system in Quillarumiyoc is very, very large, bigger then Tipon, closer to the size of Pisaq.   In addition to the farming terraces, we have found evidence that the stream that runs into the main river in the valley was channelized.  The channelization consists of the same stone work that we are finding in the terraces.  We are all amazed at the quality of the stone work being uncovered (photo 3, 6, 9, and 10).

We then moved to the area around the principle huaca Quillarumiyoc.  It is in this area where we had known about a wall consisting of large stones (photo 8).  That wall was mostly buried.  We dug out and removed a layer of dirt  1 1/2 meters thick and found that the wall also contained insets like those found at Tambomachay (photo 9).  The archeologist attributes these insets and the quality of stone work to the time of the Inca.  The style of stone work is referred to as "cellular" and one can find examples of this at Saqsayhuaman, Pisaq, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu, to name a few of the important sacred centers in the Cusco area.

It is also interesting to begin to imagine the true significance of this huge site.  Quilla signifies "moon" in Quechua and rumiyoc is "stone from".  But what about Corihuayrachina, another of the principle huacas.  Cori is "gold" huayrachina is "to scent or to sniff; to pry into; to crack open".  Were the builders of this site calling this huaca the place where gold cracks open? What is gold and what was it to the people of this area?  Gold was more then a precious metal.  Gold was the representation of the highest source of energy that exists for the earth, the sun.  Gold is one of the best conductors of energy on this planet.  Maybe the true meaning of this huaca was a place where one could conduct the high energy that was cracking open in the earth at this site.  If this were true, the next question would be Why?

We have begun to interview many people not just of the community of San Martin de Porras but people who live in the Anta and through various paths in their lives, have information about Quillarumiyoc.  One man was telling us about how many aspects of life for the Andean people are based on the cycles of the moon.  A potato grower never plants potatoes when the moon is full or when it is waxing.  They always plant on a waning or new moon.  This man is an agronomist and he has a huge extension of cultivated land in the Anta.  He told us that once he was planting potatoes.  The moon was a new moon and it was a Friday.  But they ran out of something that they needed and so they put off the rest of the planting until the following Tuesday.  By this time the moon was waxing.  He and his companion had divided the sections clearly as they had both grown up hearing about the moon and tuber crops but had never really tested this "old wives tale".  When it came time to harvest the crop, there was a difference in the yield between the potatoes sown under the new moon and the potatoes sewn under the waxing moon-  The new moon potatoes produced 100's of kilos more then the waxing moon potatoes.  Same dirt, same seed potatoes, same maintenance and care. In addition, the fertile time of animals is also guided by the cycles of the moon.  We have also been told that the moon guides the weight of stones.  Just with these examples, we are talking about three areas in which the societies that culminated with the Incas displayed incredible skill: agriculture, animal husbandry and stone construction. We look forward to developing all of these ideas further allowing this information to be shared with visitors to Quillarumiyoc.