Ollantaytambo: Inca Town and Temple in the Sacred Valley

Ollantaytambo is an Inca town and ceremonial complex in the Urubamba Valley of Peru, about 60 km north-west of Cusco. In the mid-15th century the ruler Pachacuti made it part of his royal estate, adding agricultural terraces, a temple complex on a steep hill and a planned town whose street grid is still lived in today. In 1537 it was also the site of one of the few Inca victories over the Spanish.

A royal estate

Inca rulers owned private estates where they and their descendants grew crops, held feasts and housed their followers. After his rise to power, traditionally dated to around 1438, Pachacuti took control of the lower Urubamba Valley and turned much of it into such estates. Ollantaytambo was among the most important, alongside sites further downriver such as Machu Picchu.

The valley was rich farmland, warmer and lower than Cusco, and ideal for growing maize. Inca engineers straightened stretches of the Urubamba River and built terraces up the valley sides to increase the cultivable land.

Ollantaytambo also had strategic value. It stands where the side valley of the Patacancha River joins the Urubamba, controlling routes towards the lowland forests to the north and east. The estate’s workers were people resettled from other parts of the empire as well as local communities, who served the royal household and its lineage after Pachacuti’s death.

Temple Hill

The most famous part of Ollantaytambo is the steep hill on the western side of town, often called the “fortress” but more accurately known as Temple Hill. Its lower slopes are covered by broad stepped terraces. At the top lies a ceremonial sector with fine Inca masonry.

Here stands the Wall of the Six Monoliths, a row of huge slabs of pink rhyolite fitted side by side with narrow filler strips. Faint raised symbols on one slab may represent the stepped cross motif known as the chakana. Around this wall lie blocks that were cut but never set in place, which shows that work was still going on in the early 16th century.

The rhyolite came from the Kachiqhata quarry, high on the far side of the valley, several kilometres away. Workers had to bring the blocks down the mountainside, across the river and up the hill. The architect Jean-Pierre Protzen studied the ramps, slides and abandoned “tired stones” along the route, which show how this transport was organised.

The Inca town

Below Temple Hill lies the town itself. Its centre was laid out on a regular grid of narrow streets enclosing walled blocks called kanchas. Each kancha had a single entrance leading to a courtyard surrounded by buildings. Stone channels still carry water along some streets.

Many of these blocks are still inhabited, and some houses rest on original Inca walls. This makes Ollantaytambo a rare example of an Inca planned settlement that survives as a living town. On the mountain of Pinkuylluna, opposite Temple Hill, stand several storehouses (qollqas) built in places where wind and altitude kept their contents cool and dry.

The battle of Ollantaytambo, 1537

After his siege of Cusco failed, the rebel ruler Manco Inca withdrew to Ollantaytambo and fortified it. Early in 1537 Hernando Pizarro led a force of Spanish cavalry and indigenous allies against him. The attackers came under heavy fire from the terraces, and Inca defenders diverted water to flood the plain where the horses operated.

The Spanish were forced to retreat, a rare defeat in the conquest period. Soon afterwards, however, reinforcements arrived from Chile under Diego de Almagro, and Manco judged Ollantaytambo too exposed. He withdrew to the remote forests of Vilcabamba, where an independent Inca state survived until 1572.

Legacy

Today Ollantaytambo is an archaeological site managed by Peru’s Ministry of Culture and part of the Cusco tourist circuit. Many travellers pass through it, since it is the main railway station for trains to Machu Picchu and a starting point for the classic Inca Trail.

The town’s name is linked to Ollantay, the hero of a Quechua drama of uncertain date, first written down in the colonial period. The play’s story of a general who rebels against the Inca is legend, not history, but it has given the town its popular image.

Timeline

• c. 1438: Pachacuti becomes Inca ruler (traditional date) and begins expansion.
• c. 1440s–1460s: The lower Urubamba Valley becomes part of Pachacuti’s royal estates; building begins at Ollantaytambo (dates approximate).
• Early 16th century: Work on the Temple Hill complex continues and is left unfinished.
• 1536: Manco Inca rebels and besieges Cusco.
• 1537: Manco Inca repels Hernando Pizarro’s attack at Ollantaytambo, then withdraws to Vilcabamba.
• 1572: The last independent Inca state at Vilcabamba falls.

Why it matters

Ollantaytambo shows how the Inca combined farming, religion and royal power in a single landscape. Its unfinished temple and surviving street grid give a rare view of Inca construction methods and urban planning.