Machu Picchu

views updated May 23 2018

Machu Picchu

At its height during the 1400s, the Incan empire was the largest in the world, stretching 2,500 miles north to south and supporting a population of more than ten million people. The temples, extensive roads, elaborate masonry, and treasures of gold and silver associated with the Incas date from around 1200 through the 1400s. The city of Cuzco became the powerful center of an empire that spread to encompass more than 100 small nations.

Roads were built to criss-cross the entire empire, running through valleys and along the sides of mountains. The Incas never developed the wheel, but the roads provided the means to move large amounts of stone and goods used to build and sustain great cities. Trained runners were used to communicate messages throughout the empire. The Inca cultivated maize and potatoes, domesticated the llama as a beast of burden, crafted boats of balsa wood to travel on rivers and streams, and built suspension bridges of rope, among their many accomplishments.

The empire was primarily expanded by three emperors, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui and his descendants Topa Inca Yapanqui (ruled 14381471) and Huayna Capac (ruled 14931525). The latter's sudden death in 1525 came before he named a successor, and the nation became bitterly divided, a situation that still raged when the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro (c. 14751541) and his army of about 400 men arrived in 1532. Lured by vast amounts of gold they found in Inca cities, the conquistadors kidnapped an Inca leader and held him for ransom. The ransom, estimated at about $50 million in gold and silver, was paid, but the leader was executed anyway.


Diseases such as smallpox, previously unknown in the New World, had begun spreading as early as the 1520s. The combination of disease, estimated to have killed two-thirds of the Incan population, and military reinforcements from Spain after Pizarro showed off the great treasures he had found, allowed the Spaniards to subdue the Incan empire, systematically sweeping through and plundering all the great Incan centers. They missed one, however, and it would remain lost to the world until 1912. The majestic site is called Machu Picchu, a city in the clouds that rests at 8,000 feet in altitude between two mountains, Huayana Picchu ("young mountain") and Machu Picchu ("ancient mountain"), and overlooks a sacred river and valley called Urubamba.

In 1911, Hiram Bingham (18751956), a historian from Yale University who was performing research in Peru, was alerted by a local farmer, Melchior Artega, about ancient ruins high up in the mountains. Bingham followed the lead and rediscovered the site of Machu Picchu. He publicized his findings in 1912, and in April of 1913 National Geographic magazine devoted an entire issue to the site.


Even though many mysteries abound about Machu Picchu, what has been discovered about the site since 1911 has led some to call it "the eighth wonder of the ancient world." Machu Picchu features religious shrines and temples, baths and water systems, plazas, fountains, and elaborate masonry work. Stones are fitted so tightly in structures that they have withstood almost five hundred years of weathering and the lush growth of vegetation. Machu Picchu, situated on a long, narrow strip between mountains and above a valley, has a series of open plazas, and was divided into three sections agricultural, urban, and religious.

The agricultural section comprises a series of terraces bordered with irrigation channels. Crops were cultivated on levels above the channels to avoid erosion. The farm area is dotted with small buildings believed to be lookout huts. The urban area is on the part of the ridge that descends abruptly into the valley. A 67-step staircase rises up from the valley to the largest urban sector. Most of the structures have one room with solid walls of intricately fitted stones. The finest structures are believed to have housed high-ranking teachers. Many of the walls have niches the size of adult humans sculpted into them; the purpose of the niches is unknown.

A plaza with a large rock in the center separates the urban and religious areas. Among the structures in the religious center is the Intihuantana Shrine, a temple carved from granite. The temple is considered a shrine to sun and stone, both of which were worshipped by Incas, and is also believed to have served as an astronomical observatory. Some of the buildings in the religious center are three-walled structures, including what is called the Great Central Temple and the Temple of the Three Windows. The latter building is believed to be associated with an Incan legend that their original ancestors emerged from a cave that had three windows. Also located in the religious center is the Temple of the Sun, a circular tower believed to have an astronomical orientation.

The most accepted view of Machu Picchu portrays it as a religious sanctuary serving high priests and "virgins of the sun." More than 80 percent of the graves found on the site contain the bones of females, considered to have been "chosen women." Machu Picchu was thought to have been visited by selected members of Incan royalty who were transported along special roads that could only be used with their permission. Since the roads were seldom used, few Inca knew about them. The conquistadors never found the way, nor did they find Incas who could lead them to the site. The reason why Machu Picchu was abandoned remains a secret lost to time.


Delving Deeper

Deuel, Leo. Conquistadors without Swords: Archaeologists in the Americas. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967.

. Flights into Yesterday: The Story of Aerial Photography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1969.

Harpur, James, and Jennifer Westwood. The Atlas of Legendary Places. New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1997.

Hodges, Henry. Technology in the Ancient World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Irwin, Constance. Fair Gods and Stone Faces. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1963.

Machu Picchu

views updated Jun 08 2018

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu, the most famous Inca settlement. A royal estate of the emperor Inca Pachacuti, Machu Picchu lies about fifty-four miles northwest of the city of Cuzco at approximately 9,000 feet above sea level, in the cloud forest of the rugged montaña region on the eastern watershed of the Peruvian Andes. Machu Picchu is believed to have been abandoned at the time of the Spanish Conquest and was never found by the conquistadores. It lay in obscurity until Hiram Bingham's 1911 expedition in search of the last Inca capital, Vilcabamba. His explorations were publicized by the National Geographic Society, and Machu Picchu became famous as the "Lost City of the Incas."

In fact Machu Picchu was neither lost nor a city. Bingham found local farmers living there when he arrived, and the site was known to the local people. Agustín Lizárraga, a landowner from Cuzco, seems to have been the first outsider to visit the site perhaps more than once between 1894 and 1902. Bingham was the first, however, to clear the site extensively and to recognize it as a major Inca monument. The function of Machu Picchu has long been debated. Bingham believed it to be the last capital of Vilcabamba, the Inca rump state established after the Conquest. Recent research, however, indicates that the site was not a city but an estate of the emperor Pachacuti. Machu Picchu's importance, aside from its beauty and aesthetic qualities, lies in the fact that the Spanish never discovered it. It is therefore one of only a very few examples of an imperial Inca installation that was not altered or affected by the European invasion. It recently has become an obligatory stop for North American and European tourists, although most Peruvians can not afford the airfare to Cuzco and the subsequent train fare to Aguas Calientes, the town from which the bus takes sightseers to the summit.

See alsoArchaeology; Bingham, Hiram; Incas, The; Pachacuti; Quechua; Vilcabamba.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources on Machu Picchu include Hiram Bingham, Machu Picchu, a Citadel of the Incas (1930) and Lost City of the Incas (1948); Paul Fejos, Archaeological Explorations in the Cordillera Vilcabamba, Southeastern Peru (1944); John Hemming, Machu Picchu (1981); and Johan Reinhard, Machu Picchu the Sacred Center (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Burger, Richard L., and Lucy C. Salazar, eds. Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

Cuba Gutiérrez, Cosme D. Machupicchu en la historia de los Inkas. Perú: s.n., 2005.

Sánchez Macedo, Marino Orlando. De las sacerdotisas, brujas y adivinas de Machu Picchu. Lima: M. O. Sánchez Macedo, 1989.

Wright, Kenneth R., Alfredo Valencia Zegarra, et al. Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering Marvel. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2000.

                                     Gordon F. McEwan

Machu Picchu

views updated May 29 2018

Machu Picchu Ancient fortified town, 80km (50mi) nw of Cuzco, Peru. The best-preserved of the Inca settlements, it lies on an Andean mountain saddle, 2057m (6750ft) above sea-level. A complex of terraces extends over 13sq km (5sq mi), linked by more than 3000 steps. US explorer Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu in 1911, and dubbed it the “lost city of the Incas”.

Machu Picchu

views updated May 29 2018

Machu Picchu a fortified Inca town in the Andes in Peru, which the invading Spaniards never found. Although it was not an important fortress, it is famous for its dramatic position, perched high on a steep-sided ridge. It contains a palace, a temple to the sun, and extensive cultivation terraces. Discovered in 1911, it was named after the mountain that rises above it.