Did these steps lead to an upper floor at one time?
Note the channel along the slate floor for the rain water or waste water to flow away from the building.
With the wealth of the monastery no longer available, and the nuns apart from the world, the monastery remained much as it was in the 16th and 17th centuries. While the city of Arequipa modernized itself around the walled community, the nuns continued living as they had for centuries. It was only in the 1970s that civil codes required the nuns to install electricity and a water system. With no funds to comply, the nuns made the decision to open the majority of the monastery to public view. They retreated to a small complex, off-limits to visitors, and for the first time in centuries, the curious public entered the city within a city.