The mestee historian Garcilaso de la Vega, "el Ynga", reports about a holy cross of white and red marble or jasper, which was venerated in 16th-century Cusco. The cross had been kept in a royal house, in a sacred place or "wak'a", but the Incas did not worship it. They simply admired it because of its beauty. The cross was square ("quadrada"), measuring about two by two feet, its branches three inch wide, the edges carefully squared and the surface brightly polished.