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Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is a city located high in the Andes Mountains in modern Peru. It lies 43 miles northwest of Cuzco at the top of a ridge, hiding it from the Urabamba gorge below. The ridge is between a block of highland and the massive Huaynac Picchu, around which the Urubamba River takes a sharp bend. The surrounding area is covered in dense bush, some of it covering Pre-Colombian cultivation terraces.
Machu Picchu (which means "Old Peak") was most likely a royal estate and religious retreat. It was built between 1460 and 1470 AD by Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, an Incan ruler. The city has an altitude of 8,000 feet, and is high above the Urubamba River canyon cloud forest, so it likely did not have any administrative, military or commercial use. After Pachacuti’s death, Machu Picchu became the property of his allus, or kinship group, which was responsible for it’s maintenance, administration, and any new construction.
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One of the most important things found at Machu Picchu is the intihuatana, which is a column of stone rising from a block of stone the size of a grand piano. Intihuatana literally means 'for tying the sun", although it is usually translated as "hitching post of the sun". As the winter solstice approached, when the sun seemed to disappear more each day, a priest would hold a ceremony to tie the sun to the stone to prevent the sun from disappearing altogether. The other intihuatanas were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors, but because the Spanish never found Machu Picchu, it remained intact. Mummies have also been found there; most of the mummies were women.
Few people outside the Inca's closest retainers were actually aware of Machu Picchu's existence. Before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the smallpox spread ahead of them. Fifty percent of the population had been killed by the disease by 1527. The government began to fail, part of the empire seceded and it fell into civil war. So by the time Pizarro, the Inca's conquerer, arrived in Cuzco in 1532, Machu Picchu was already forgotten.
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| Machu Picchu History |
 Most modern archaeologists and historians coincide that Machu Picchu was built by the Inca Pachacutec, the greatest statesman in Tahuantinsuyo, who governed from 1438 to 1471. Archaeologists infer that the citadel's construction dates from the fifteenth century approximately, a date confirmed by carbon 14 (radioactive carbon) dating.
Machu Picchu's construction coincides with the start of the expansion of the small feudal kingdom of the Incas. According to archaeologists, the final battle defining the Incas' victory over the Chancas, a prestigious victory that gave much power to Inca Pachacutec, was fought in this area.
Pachacutec was the first Inca to expand beyond the valley of Cusco after his epic victory over the Chancas. He was the author of Tahuantinsuyo's expansion and is recognized as the "constructor" of Cusco. This was one of his greatest works.
Machu Picchu's origin is attributed, with a certain degree of authority to Pachacutec, a warlike leader, noted for both territorial conquests and the development of religion and spirituality. This is why present archaeological researchers tend to support the theory that it was a royal hacienda destined for the worship of the Inca's gods, as well as a mighty challenge to the monarch's construction skills.
Built as a refuge for the elite of Inca aristocracy, the fortress was located on the eastern slope of the Vilcanota Cordillera, some 80 km from Cusco, the capital of the empire. Its strategic geographic location was amazingly well chosen. Surrounded by steep cliffs and secluded from the sight of strangers by the thick jungle around it, the citadel of Machu Picchu had the special virtue of possessing only one narrow entry point, which enabled a successful defense by a handful of warriors in the event of surprise attack.
Occupied by at least three generations of Incas, the fortress of Machu Picchu was abandoned in a sudden and mysterious way. The most likely theories explain its disappearance from historical memory by the fact that its existence was unknown to the lower castes, and all but the small circle of the Inca's immediate retinue were forbidden to approach it.
Pachacutec's conquests included the valley of Tampu, that was inhabited by a sister tribe to the Cusco, but one that did not escape its all-encompassing rule. Due to its natural beauty and mild climate (one of the best in the Andes), as well as its fertile soil, Tampu was chosen by Pachacutec as the seat of the new imperial nobility, and the valley was embellished with several of Tahuantinsuyo's most attractive cities, such as Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu. The choice of Machu Picchu's site must have been made with great care, because it was, and still is, the ideal place to locate a center for worship. According to researcher Antonio Zapata, it is located in a mountain chain of sacred significance, starting at Salcantay (the apu, or great spirit) and ending in Huayna Picchu. It was a privileged spot to view the heavens and the movements of sun and stars, which were the deities of the Incas. Moreover, according to his research, there was a nearby quarry supplying white granite of very fine quality.
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Discovery of Machu Picchu
July 24 1911 is known as the date of the "discovery" of the famous Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, an architectural treasure that had remained hidden for over four centuries under the lush vegetation of the Urubamba canyon. This find was made by the controversial American anthropologist and historian with a penchant for archaeology (or, if you like, the explorer), Professor Hiram Bingham of Yale University.
Although the discovery is attributed to Bingham, according to the Cusco researcher, Simone Waisbard, the find was a chance one, since its first discoverers were apparently Enrique Palma, Gabino Sanchez and Agustin Lizarraga, who left their names engraved on one of the rocks there on July 14, 1901. Moreover, the Anglo Saxon archaeologist was really looking for the city of Vitco, the last refuge of the Incas, and their last bastion against the Spaniards. Thus, the importance of Bingham's discovery would lie in the scientific diffusion of the information. However, for the protagonist of this discovery, it was the crowning of an exhausting research effort, based on information obtained from local peasants, as well as on several years of traveling and exploring the area.
Before Machu Picchu was discovered, it probably formed part of the Qollapani and Kutija estates. Over the years, the Q`ente hacienda took possession of the property. The discoverers, Palma, Sanchez and Lizarraga found a local indian, Anacleto Alvarez, who had been paying a rent of twelve soles a year for farming rights on the property during the last eight years, living there.
The owners of the fundo would never have been able to explore the whole place, due to its sheer size, and especially because of its jagged topography. People had, in fact, been living in Machu Picchu without having an idea of its size nor of its importance, let alone being able to inform the world of these things.
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| Facts of Statue of Liberty |
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- The Inca people originated around A.D. 1150 in the Cuzco valley of what is now modern-day Peru.
- By its height in the 1520s, the Inca Empire stretched 3,500 miles from what is now modern Colombia to central Chile and also incorporated substantial portions of Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Peru.
- Although the Inca people only numbered about 100,000, they ruled more than 15 million people from dozens of ethnic groups.
- Roughly translated from Quechua, the language of the Inca, Machu Picchu means “ Old Mountain Peak.” It was built for Inca ruler Pachacuti more than 500 years ago.
- Machu Picchu lies in the jungle of the Urubamba Valley —known as the Sacred Valley of the Incas—in the Andes of Peru. It is about four hours by train (or a four-day walk) from the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco.
- Machu Picchu is called the “lost city” because the jungle had literally swallowed it when Yale explorer Hiram Bingham III “rediscovered” it in 1911. When the overgrown vegetation was removed, the complex of ruins was revealed.
- Machu Picchu is surrounded by high mountain peaks and rushing waters, features that were sacred to the Inca. While more than half the buildings on the site were used for religious purposes, recent research reveals Machu Picchu was a retreat or vacation spot for Inca royalty, rather than a sacred “city.” Anyone who visits Machu Picchu today will no doubt appreciate the beauty of this mountaintop retreat.
- Machu Picchu 's 150 dwellings included palaces, baths, temples and storage rooms, carefully carved from the gray granite of the Andes and filled with magnificent treasures. Many of the building stones weighed 50 tons or more, yet they were sculpted so precisely there was no need for mortar to hold them together.
- Most of the people who lived at Machu Picchu year-round were probably servants who served the Inca rulers. Metalworkers and other specialized craftspeople also lived there. The Inca ruler and his family and entourage may have spent weeks or months at a time at Machu Picchu.
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| Getting There
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Getting there is a spectacular trip in itself but no longer a definitive set pattern. It consists of two parts:
Getting to Aguas Calientes
Getting from Aguas Calientes to the ruins
GETTING TO AGUAS CALIENTES: This is one of the great train trips of the world. Orient Express operates two trains:
The VistaDome service leaves Cuzco early in the morning and zig-zags up and over the mountains and into the Sacred Valley of the Incas and then on to Cuzco, the scenery becoming more dramatic each minute. Arrival is about 9:30 with return departure around 3:30 PM, giving you a bit more than 4 hours at the ruins.
The new deluxe Hiram Bingham rail service leaves at Poroy station at 9AM serving Brunch en route and arriving at the ruins at mid-day for tour, tea and free time, and then departing at 6:30 PM with cocktails, dinner and entertainment en route back to Cuzco, arriving at Poroy Station at 9:30 PM. It is a 30 minute transfer from hotels in the city to the Poroy station.
GETTING FROM AGUAS CALIENTES TO THE RUINS: The train stops at Aguas Calientes; it no longer goes to the old train station named Machu Picchu. From the new station at Aguas Calientes you walk five minutes through the artisan handicraft market to the shuttle station where buses are lined up waiting to board you. There is a schedule of sorts - the motorcoaches go when full through the morning. Around 11AM they begin to go on an every-half-hour schedule or once full. Your tour arrangements will include the ticket for one ride up and one ride down; any additional trips will require the purchase of a ticket.
The motorcoaches are large and all drivers are experienced.
The ride is a 2,000 foot serpentine road that offers spectacular views to the valley and river. It doesn't matter which side you sit on; because of the numerous switchbacks both sides are exposed multiple times to the open-view side. Going up takes about 20 to 25 minutes; going down about 20 minutes.
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