Page 19 - June SRG

Slippery rock Gazette
White Granite
The City Within the Clouds
June 2020|19
High up in the Andes Mountains of Peru, South America, lies a granite and limestone wonder called Machu Picchu. It sits almost 8,000 feet above sea level (Denver, Colorado, aka “The Mile High City” is only 5,280 feet above sea level) and covers 32,592 hectares or over 80,500 acres. It was designated a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and dubbed one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in July 2007.
Machu Picchu was built by the Incas in the mid- 1400s, centuries before any of our modern day me- chanical aids and conveniences. Some of the rock was cut straight out of the mountain, and some of the boulders were pushed up the mountain—by hand, using no wheels. Some of those boulders weigh over 50 tons and were pushed uphill by hundreds of men striving to build what would later become known as the Lost City of the Incas.
There are more than 100 individual staircases in Machu Picchu. Most of the individual staircases are carved from 1 solid piece of stone without any modern tools, or any ancient iron tools, for that matter. There are also over 600 rock-rimmed ledges
Sharon Koehler
Artistic Stone Design
Another technique used by the Incas at Machu Picchu is pillow-faced or polygonal masonry which is by definition “smooth, many-sided stone blocks closely fitted together.” Basically, stone blocks are sanded and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, again, without mortar. It was – and still is – a great tech- nique for building walls. The pillow-faced stone wall surrounding Macho Picchu is approximately 20 feet high and 6 feet thick. While the two tech- niques sound similar, there is one big difference: If a stone or block is damaged, it can be re-sanded and made to fit in pillow faced masonry, but not in Ashlar masonry.
Since the Incas left no written records, there is only mystery and speculation as to why they would build such a magnificent place. Some think it was a getaway destination for the Inca rulers and royalty. Others think that it was a place of escape when wars were being fought. If true, this in hindsight was a
One of the “New Seven Wonders of the World,” Machu Picchu, located high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, was built with a mixture of ashlar and pillow-faced stone construc- tion – all without using mortar. The stones — some of them weighing tons — are fitted to- gether with much care and effort to build a very import- ant site to this ad- vanced culture.
A close-up view of Bethel White granite shows how the pin- head taupe grains are slightly visible but from a distance visual blending registers the surface as a pure white.
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The team found a natural choice in the flawless character, even grain and purity of color of Polycor Bethel White granite, quarried in Vermont. The hard wearing granite became the basis of a €192 million renovation to replace the Carrara marble exte- rior with granite panels in 2016.
The surface treatment the gran- ite receives ensures the same shade and shine as the original marble, resulting in a clean and white surface, with no worries of
durability. The choice of the white American granite over Italian marble is a growing trend world- wide, as granite demonstrates its ability to stay white in all weather conditions without oxidizing or rusting.
Up close granite and marble are clearly two different stones, granite having a more variegated interlocking crystalline structure and marble a milkier composi- tion usually with more veining. A detail photo of the granite shows how the pinhead taupe grains are slightly visible up close, but from a distance visual blending regis- ters the surface as a pure white.
If your project team is facing durability challenges with mar- ble, Bethel White granite may be your solution. Its clean white appearance supports slick modern designs like the arch, and offers an excellent carving medium for classical designs.
To learn more about why ar- chitects are swapping out Italian marble for American granite, visit polycor.com.
within Machu Picchu. These stone-rimmed ledges were used to reduce soil erosion and help with water conservation.
There are over 150 stone buildings in the com- pound. Some are clearly identified as temples. There are also houses and some sanctuaries. It’s not what the buildings are used for that is so amazing, it was the way a lot of the buildings and walls were constructed.
The Incas used a stone masonry technique called ASHLAR. Ashlar masonry is by definition “pre- cisely cut and shaped stones fitted closely together without mortar.” They used either stone or copper tools to cut the stone along natural fissures and then polished the pieces. It is said that a knife blade can- not fit between the stones, and it is also said that during earthquakes, the stones dance and then fall back into place once the earthquake is over. The Sun Temple at Machu Picchu is a fantastic example of Ashlar masonry.
“Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don’t run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly
unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.” —Thomas Sowell
great idea because it took about 400 hundred years or so for the site to be “discovered” by the out- side world. There is speculation that since it was so high up in the clouds, it was used for astronomy. Besides being called “The Lost City of the Incas,” it is also known as “The City Within the Clouds.”
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