Battle of Ollantaytambo - Battle Site

Battle Site

The actual location of the battle is the subject of some controversy. According to Canadian explorer John Hemming, Spanish forces occupied a plain between Ollantaytambo and the Urubamba River while the main Inca army was located on a citadel (the Temple Hill) overlooking the town, protected by seventeen terraces. However, Swiss architect Jean-Pierre Protzen argues that the topography of the town and its surrounding area does not match contemporary descriptions of the battle. An anonymous account attributed to Diego de Silva claims that the Inca army occupied a set of eleven terraces, not seventeen; while the chronicle of Pedro Pizarro describes a gate flanked by walls as the only way through the terraces. Protzen thinks that these descriptions allude to a set of eleven terraces that close the plain of Mascabamba, near Ollantaytambo, which include the heavily fortified gate of T'iyupunku. At this location, when the Spaniards faced the terraces they would have had the Urubamba River to their left and the steep hill of Cerro Pinkulluna to their right, matching the three sides from which they were attacked during the battle. If Protzen's hypothesis is correct, the river diverted to flood the battlefield was the Urubamba, and not its smaller affluent, the Patakancha, which runs alongside the town of Ollantaytambo.