Machu Picchu
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Machu Picchu (in hispanicized spelling,
Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmatʃu ˈpiktʃu]) or
Machu Pikchu (
Quechua machu old, old person,
pikchu peak; mountain or prominence with a broad base which ends in sharp peaks,
[1] "old peak", pronunciation
[ˈmɑtʃu ˈpixtʃu]) is a 15th-century
Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft)
above sea level.
[2][3] It is located in the
Cusco Region,
Urubamba Province,
Machupicchu District in
Peru.
[4]
It is situated on a mountain ridge above the
Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of
Cuzco and through which the
Urubamba River flows. Most
archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor
Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas" (a title more accurately applied to
Vilcabamba), it is the most familiar icon of
Inca civilization.
The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it a century later at the time of the
Spanish Conquest.
Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the
colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world before being
brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian
Hiram Bingham.
Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give
tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like.
[5] By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored;
[5] restoration continues today.
[6]
Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
[3] In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the
New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.
Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished
dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the
Inti Watana, the
Temple of the Sun, and the
Room of the Three Windows.
History
Machu Picchu was built around 1450, at the height of the
Inca Empire.
[7]
Its construction appears to date to the period of the two great Incas,
Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (1438–71) and Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1472–93).
[8] It was abandoned just over 100 years later, in 1572, as a belated result of the
Spanish Conquest.
[7][9]
It is possible that most of its inhabitants died from
smallpox introduced by travellers before the Spanish
conquistadors arrived in the area.
[10] The conquistadors had notes of a place called
Piccho,
although there is no record of the Spanish having visited the remote
city. The types of sacred rocks defaced by the conquistadors in other
locations are untouched at Machu Picchu.
[9]
The site may have been discovered and plundered in 1867 by a German businessman, Augusto Berns.
[11]
There is some evidence that a German engineer, J. M. von Hassel,
arrived earlier. Maps found by historians show references to Machu
Picchu as early as 1874.
[12]
View of the city of Machu Picchu in 1912 showing the original ruins
after major clearing and before modern reconstruction work began.
[5][6]
Although the
citadel is located only about 80 kilometers (50 mi) from
Cusco, the Inca capital, the Spanish never found it and so did not plunder or destroy it, as they did many other sites.
[9] Over the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew over the site, and few outside the immediate area knew of its existence.
Hiram Bingham was an American historian and lecturer at
Yale University,
although not a trained archaeologist. In 1909, returning from the
Pan-American Scientific Congress in Santiago, he traveled through Peru
and was invited to explore the Inca ruins at Choqquequirau in the
Apurimac Valley. He organized the 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition with one
of its objectives to search for the last capital of the Incas. He in
fact, guided by locals, rediscovered and correctly identified both
Vitcos (then called Rosaspata) and
Vilcabamba (then called Espíritu Pampa), which he named "Eromboni Pampa".
[13]
However, he did not correctly recognize Vilcabamba as the last capital,
instead continuing onward and misidentifying Machu Picchu as the "Lost
City of the Incas", as his book titled it. Further expeditions focused
on Machu Picchu, neglecting further investigation of Vitcos and
Vilcabamba. Machu Picchu was built at the height of the Inca Empire, and
thus features spectacular workmanship and a dramatic site, while the
actual last capital of Vilcabamba was built while the short-lived
remnant
Neo-Inca State was being vanquished by the Spanish, and thus features crude workmanship.
Bingham asked a Peruvian farmer and innkeeper, Melchor Arteaga, if he knew of any ruins in the area.
[14]
The next day, 24 July 1911, Arteaga led Bingham and Sergeant Carrasco
across the river on a primitive log bridge and up the Huayna Picchu
mountain. At the top of the mountain they came across a small hut
occupied by a couple of
Quechua,
Richarte and Alvarez, who were farming some of the original Machu
Picchu agricultural terraces that they had cleared four years earlier.
Alvarez's 11-year-old son, Pablito, led Bingham along the ridge to the
main ruins.
[15]
During Bingham's
archaeological
studies, he collected various artifacts which he took back to Yale. One
prominent artifact was a set of 15th-century, ceremonial Incan knives
made from
bismuth bronze; they are the earliest known artifact containing this alloy.
[16]
Although local institutions initially welcomed the exploration
supplementing knowledge about Peruvian ancestry, they soon accused
Bingham of legal and cultural malpractice.
[17]
Rumors arose that the team was stealing artifacts and smuggling them
out of Peru through the bordering country of Bolivia. (In fact, Bingham
removed many artifacts, but openly and legally; they were deposited in
the Yale University Museum.) Local press perpetuated the accusations,
claimed that the excavation harmed the site and deprived local
archaeologists of knowledge about their own history.
[17] Landowners began to demand rent from the excavators.
[17]
By the time Bingham and his team left Machu Picchu, locals began
forming coalitions to defend their ownership of Machu Picchu and its
cultural remains, while Bingham claimed the artifacts ought to be
studied by experts in American institutions, an argument that still
exists today.
[17]
In 1964,
Gene Savoy
did further exploration of the ruins at Espiritu Pampa and revealed the
full extent of the site, identifying it as Vilcabamba Viejo where the
Incas fled to after the Spanish drove them from Vitcos.
[18]
In 1981, Peru declared an area of 325.92 square kilometres
(125.84 sq mi) surrounding Machu Picchu a "Historical Sanctuary". In
addition to the ruins, the sanctuary includes a large portion of the
adjoining region, rich with the
flora and
fauna of the
Peruvian Yungas and
Central Andean wet puna ecoregions.
[19]
In 1983, UNESCO designated Machu Picchu a
World Heritage Site, describing it as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization".
[2]
Demystifying the discovery
Hiram Bingham glorified the discovery of Machu Picchu and much of its
history. This came to light after his son Alfred discovered letters
that his father had sent his mother in 1911. Early publications led many
people to believe that Hiram had long sought the lost city of the Incas
and found it after trekking through a hazardous tropical jungle.
Actually, Machu Picchu was not a chief objective of the 1911 expedition,
and Hiram was led to it on a 48-hour journey. The road to Machu Picchu
was located next to a heavily populated farm region. Although Hiram
often claimed that the paths to Machu Picchu were the most inaccessible
in all of the Andes, his letters indicate that he used a modern road
system and travelled to the region with ease. It is said that the
original journey only took Hiram one and a half hours. Today, tourists
can reach the ruins from the train stop in 15 minutes.
[20]
Hiram also claimed that all the ruins were covered in dense
vegetation, but unpublished photographs from the original journey,
discovered by Alfred, show the ruins in a clear open space. The letters
and photographs suggest that Machu Picchu was not isolated in
wilderness, but was connected and populated by several indigenous
families. Alfred also suggests that his father did not originally value
his findings at Machu Picchu as he only spent one afternoon there. He
only decided to further investigate the ruins after some prominent
plantation owners told him they knew little of the location's existence.
[21]
Human sacrifice and mysticism
There is little information on human sacrifices taking place at Machu
Picchu. This can be attributed to the fact that many sacrifices were
never given a proper burial and their skeletal remains have succumbed to
the elements.
[22]:115
However, there is evidence of retainer sacrifices. In these unique
cases, human sacrifices were made to accompany a deceased noble in the
afterlife.
[22]:107,119
Animal, liquid, and dirt sacrifices to the gods were much more common.
They were made at the Altar of the Condor and are still made today by
members of the
New Age Andean religion.
[23]:263
Geography
Machu Picchu lies in the
southern hemisphere, 13.164 degrees south of the
equator.
[24] It is 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of
Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,430 metres (7,970 feet)
above mean sea level, over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) lower than
Cusco, which has an elevation of 3,600 metres (11,800 ft).
[24]
As such, it had a milder climate than the Inca capital. It is one of
the most important archaeological sites in South America, one of the
most visited tourist attractions in all of Latin America
[25] and the most visited tourist attraction in Peru.
The year at Machu Picchu is divided between
wet and
dry seasons, with the majority of
annual rain falling from October through to April. It can rain at any time of the year.
[24]
Machu Picchu is situated above a bow of the
Urubamba River,
which surrounds the site on three sides, with cliffs dropping
vertically for 450 metres (1,480 ft) to the river at their base. The
area is subject to morning mists rising from the river.
[9]
The location of the city was a military secret, and its deep precipices
and steep mountains provided excellent natural defenses. The
Inca Bridge, an
Inca grass rope bridge, across the Urubamba River in the
Pongo de Mainique, provided a secret entrance for the
Inca army.
Another Inca bridge was built to the west of Machu Picchu, the
tree-trunk bridge, at a location where a gap occurs in the cliff that
measures 6 metres (20 ft). It could be bridged by two tree trunks, but
with the trees removed, there was a 570 metres (1,870 ft) fall to the
base of the cliffs.
The city sits in a saddle between the two mountains Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu,
[9]
with a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable
mountain at its back. It has a water supply from springs that cannot be
blocked easily, and enough land to grow food for about four times as
many people as ever lived there. The hillsides leading to it have been
terraced, not only to provide more farmland to grow crops, but to
steepen the slopes which invaders would have to ascend. The terraces
reduced soil
erosion and protected against
landslides.
[26]
Two high-altitude routes from Machu Picchu go across the mountains back
to Cusco, one through the sun gate, and the other across the Inca
bridge. Both could be blocked easily, should invaders approach along
them. Regardless of its original purpose, it is strategically located
and readily defended.
Site
Terraced fields in the upper agricultural sector
Layout
The site is roughly divided into an urban sector and an agricultural
sector, and into an upper town and a lower town. The temples are in the
upper town, the warehouses in the lower.
[27]
The architecture is adapted to the mountains. Approximately 200
buildings are arranged on wide parallel terraces around a vast central
square that is oriented east-west. The various compounds, called
kanchas,
are long and narrow in order to exploit the terrain. Extensive terraces
were used for agriculture and sophisticated channeling systems provided
irrigation for the fields. Numerous stone stairways set in the walls
allowed access to the different levels across the site. The eastern
section of the city was probably residential. The western, separated by
the square, was for religious and ceremonial purposes. This section
contains the
Torreón, the massive tower which may have been used as an observatory.
[28]
Temple of the Sun or Torreon
Located in the first zone are the primary archaeological treasures: the
Inti Watana, the
Temple of the Sun and the
Room of the Three Windows. These were dedicated to
Inti, their sun god and greatest deity.
The Popular District, or Residential District, is the place where the
lower-class people lived. It includes storage buildings and simple
houses.
The royalty area, a sector for the
nobility, is a group of houses located in rows over a slope; the residence of the
amautas (wise persons) was characterized by its reddish walls, and the zone of the
ñustas
(princesses) had trapezoid-shaped rooms. The Monumental Mausoleum is a
carved statue with a vaulted interior and carved drawings. It was used
for rites or sacrifices.
The Guardhouse is a three-sided building, with one of its long sides
opening onto the Terrace of the Ceremonial Rock. The three-sided style
of Inca architecture is known as the
wayrona style.
[29]
Inti Watana stone
Inti Watana is believed to have been designed as an astronomic clock or calendar by the Incas
The sculpture carved out from the rock bottom of the sun temple is interpreted as "Water mirrors for observing the sky".
[30]
The
Inti Watana stone is one of many
ritual stones in South America. These stones are arranged to point directly at the sun during the winter
solstice. The name of the stone (perhaps coined by Bingham) derives from
Quechua language:
inti means "sun", and
wata-, "to tie, hitch (up)". The suffix
-na derives nouns for tools or places. Hence
inti watana
is literally an instrument or place to "tie up the sun", often
expressed in English as "The Hitching Post of the Sun". The Inca
believed the stone held the sun in its place along its annual path in
the sky. The stone is situated at 13°9'48" S. At midday on 11 November
and 30 January, the sun stands almost exactly above the pillar, casting
no shadow. On 21 June, the stone casts the longest shadow on its
southern side, and on 21 December a much shorter shadow on its northern
side.
Inti Mach'ay and the Royal Feast of the Sun
Inti Mach'ay is a special cave used to observe the Royal Feast of the
Sun. This festival was celebrated during the Incan month of
Qhapaq Raymi.
It began earlier in the month and concluded on the December solstice.
On this day, boys of the nobility were initiated into manhood by an
ear-piercing ritual as they stood inside the cave and watched the sun
rise.
[31]
Architecturally, Inti Mach'ay is the most significant structure at
Machu Picchu. Its entrances, walls, steps and windows are some of the
finest masonry in Incan Empire. The cave also includes a tunnel-like
window unique among Incan structures, which was constructed to only
allow sunlight into the cave during several days around the December
solstice. For this reason, the cave was inaccessible for much of the
year.
[32]
Inti Mach'ay is located on the eastern side of Machu Picchu, just north
of the "Condor Stone." Many of the caves surrounding this area were
prehistorically used as tombs, yet there is no evidence that Mach'ay was
a burial ground.
[33]
Construction
The central buildings of Machu Picchu use the classical Inca
architectural style of polished dry-stone walls of regular shape. The
Incas were masters of this technique, called
ashlar, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without
mortar. Many junctions in the central city are so perfect that it is said not even a blade of grass fits between the stones.
View of the residential section of Machu Picchu
Interior of an Inca building, featuring trapezoidal windows
Funerary Stone in upper cemetery
The section of the mountain where Machu Picchu was built provided
several beneficial and detrimental factors. The Inca solved the
detriments with local materials.
The most apparent detriment was the seismic activity due to the two
surrounding fault lines. It made mortar and similar building methods
nearly useless. Instead, the Inca mined stoned from the natural quarry
at the site, lined them up and shaped them to fit together perfectly,
making the buildings sturdier than mortar would. This allowed to
construct the over 200 buildings atop the mountain.
Inca
walls have many stabilizing features: doors and windows are
trapezoidal, tilting in from bottom to top; corners usually are rounded;
inside corners often incline slightly into the rooms; and outside
corners were often tied together by "L"-shaped blocks; walls are offset
slightly from row to row rather than rising straight from bottom to top.
Another detriment was the heavy rainfall. To drain rain water and
prevent mud slides, landslides, erosion and flooding, the Incas used
terraces and stone chips. Terraces were layered with stone chips, sand,
dirt and top soil, to soak water in and prevent it from running down the
mountain. Similar layering protected the large city center from
flooding.
[34]
The Incas never used the
wheel
in a practical way, although its use in toys shows that they knew its
principle. Its use in engineering may have been impractical due to the
lack of strong
draft animals,
the steep terrain and dense vegetation. How they moved and placed the
enormous stones remains uncertain, but the general belief is that they
used hundreds of men to push the stones up inclined planes. A few stones
have knobs that could have been used to lever them into position; it is
believed that after placing the stones, the builders would have sanded
the knobs away, but a few were overlooked.
Roads and transportation
As part of their
road system, the Incas built a road to the Machu Picchu region. Today, thousands of tourists walk the
Inca Trail to visit Machu Picchu each year.
[35]
They congregate at Cusco before starting on the one-, two-, four- or
five-day journey on foot from Kilometer 82 (or 77 or 85, four/five-day
trip) or Kilometer 104 (one/two-day trip) near the town of
Ollantaytambo in the Urubamba valley, walking up through the Andes mountain range to the isolated city.
The people of Machu Picchu were connected to long-distance trade, as
shown by non-local artifacts found at the site. For example, Bingham
found unmodified
obsidian nodules at the entrance gateway. In the 1970s, Burger and Asaro determined that these obsidian samples were from the
Titicaca or
Chivay obsidian source, and that the samples from Machu Picchu showed long-distance transport of this obsidian type in pre-Hispanic Peru.
[36]
3D laser scanning of site
In 2005 and 2009, the
University of Arkansas made detailed
laser scans
of the entire Machu Picchu site and of the ruins at the top of the
adjacent Huayna Picchu mountain. The university has made the scan data
available online for research purposes.
[37]
Threats
Tourist impact
Machu Picchu is a
UNESCO World Heritage Site,
both cultural and natural. Since its discovery in 1911, growing numbers
of tourists visit the site yearly, reaching 400,000 in 2000.
[38]
As Peru's most visited tourist attraction and major revenue generator,
it is continually threatened by economic and commercial forces. In the
late 1990s, the Peruvian government granted concessions to allow the
construction of a cable car and a luxury hotel, including a tourist
complex with boutiques and restaurants. Many people protested against
the plans, including Peruvians and foreign scientists, saying that the
greater numbers of visitors would pose a tremendous physical burden on
the ruins.
[39] Many protested a plan to build a bridge to the site as well.
[40] A
no-fly zone exists above the area.
[41] UNESCO is considering putting Machu Picchu on its
List of World Heritage in Danger.
[40]
During the 1980s a large rock from Machu Picchu's central plaza was
moved out of its alignment to a different location to create a
helicopter landing zone. Since the 1990s, the government has forbidden
helicopter landings there. In 2006, a Cusco-based company, Helicusco,
sought to have tourist flights over Machu Picchu and initially received a
license to do so, but the government quickly overturned the decision.
[42]
In recent years, Machu Picchu has experienced a multitude of issues
of tourist safety. There have been several accounts of tourist deaths
linked to
altitude sickness, floods and hiking accidents.
[43][44][45][46]
It has also been noted that UNESCO has received harsh criticism for
allowing tourists to go to the location even though there are high risks
of landslides, earthquakes and injury due to decaying structures.
[47]
Naked tourism is recent trend to the dismay of Peruvian officials. In
several incidents, tourists were detained for posing for nude pictures
or streaking across the grassy fields of Machu Picchu. Peru's Ministry
of Culture has denounced these acts for threatening Peru's cultural
heritage. Cusco's Regional Director of Culture has increased
surveillance to crack down on naked tourism.
[48]
January 2010 evacuation
In January 2010, heavy rain caused flooding which buried or washed
away roads and railways to Machu Picchu, trapping more than 2,000 locals
and more than 2,000 tourists, who were later airlifted. Machu Picchu
was temporarily closed,
[49] but it reopened on 1 April 2010.
[50]
Entrance restrictions
In July 2011, the Dirección Regional de Cultura Cusco (DRC) introduced new entrance rules to the citadel of Machu Picchu.
[51]
The tougher entrance rules were a measure to reduce the impact of
tourism on the site. Entrance was limited to 2,500 visitors per day, and
entrance to Huayna Picchu (within the citadel) was further restricted
to 400 visitors per day, in two allocated time slots at 7am and 10am.
In May 2012, a team of
UNESCO
conservation experts called on Peruvian authorities to take "emergency
measures" to further stabilize the site’s buffer zone and protect it
from damage due to tourism-related development, particularly in the
nearby town of
Aguas Calientes, which has grown rapidly.
[52]
Cultural artifacts: Dispute between Peru and Yale University
In 1912, 1914 and 1915, Bingham excavated thousands of artifacts from
Machu Picchu—ceramic vessels, silver statues, jewelry, and human
bones—and took them to
Yale University
in the United States for further study, supposedly for 18 months. Yale
kept the artifacts until 2012, arguing that Peru lacked the
infrastructure and conditions to care for them.
Eliane Karp, an
anthropologist who is married to the former Peruvian President
Alejandro Toledo, had accused Yale of profiting from Peru's cultural heritage. Many of articles were exhibited at Yale's Peabody Museum.
In 2006, Yale returned some of the pieces but kept the rest, claiming
this was supported by federal case law of Peruvian antiquities.
[53] On 19 September 2007, the
Courant
reported that Peru and Yale had agreed on the return of the artifacts.
The agreement included a joint traveling exhibition and construction of a
new museum and research center in Cusco advised by Yale. Yale
acknowledged Peru's title to all the objects, but would share rights
with Peru in the research collection, part of which would remain at Yale
for continuing study.
[54] On 19 June 2008, National Geographic Society's vice-president Terry Garcia was quoted by the daily publication,
La República.
"We were part of this agreement. National Geographic was there, we know
what was said, the objects were lent and should be returned." On 21
November 2010, Yale agreed to return the disputed artifacts.
[55] The third and final batch of artifacts was delivered November 2012.
[56]
The Yale artifacts are now permanently exhibited at La Casa Concha
("The Shell House") close to Cusco's colonial center. Owned by the
National University of San Antonio Abad Del Cusco, La Casa Concha also
features a study area for local and foreign students.
In media
The 1954 film
Secret of the Incas by
Paramount Pictures
with Charlton Heston and Ima Sumac was filmed on location at Cusco and
Machu Picchu, the first time that a major Hollywood studio filmed on
site. Five hundred
indigenous people were hired as extras in the film.
[57]
The opening sequence of the 1972 film
Aguirre, the Wrath of God was shot in the Machu Picchu area and on the stone stairway of
Huayna Picchu.
[58]
Machu Picchu also is featured prominently in the 2004 film,
The Motorcycle Diaries, a
biopic based on the 1952 youthful travel
memoir of
Marxist revolutionary
Che Guevara.
[59]
The
NOVA television documentary "Ghosts of Machu Picchu" presents an elaborate documentary on the mysteries of Machu Picchu.
[60]
Contemporary multimedia artist
Kimsooja used Macchu Picchu as the primary setting for the first episode of her film series
Thread Routes, shot in 2010.
[61]
The song "
Kilimanjaro" from the 2010 South Indian Tamil film
Enthiran was filmed in Machu Picchu.
[62] The sanction for filming was granted only after direct intervention from the Indian government.
[63][64]
Panoramic views
panoramic view of Machu Picchu.
panoramic view of Machu Picchu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu
