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MACHU PICHU INCA - city in the clouds
The ruins of Machu Pichu, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people utilized the Andean mountain top (9060 feet elevation), erecting massive stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Pichu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Pichu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city. Two thousand feet above the rumbling Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded ruins have palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation. These structures, carved from the grey granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius.
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MACHU PICHU - Wayna Pichu
Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet they are sculpted so precisely and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade. Little is known of the social or religious use of the site, yet the skeletal remains of ten females to one male suggests that it may have been a sanctuary for the training of priestesses and /or brides for the Inca nobility..
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MACHU PICHU - Mausoleum
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INTIWATANA-SUN STONE - Ceremonial Complex
One of Machu Pichu's primary functions was that of astronomical observatory. The Intihuatana stone (meaning 'Hitching Post of the Sun') has been shown to be a precise indicator of the date of the winter solstice and other significant celestial periods. Every midwinter, the Incas held a ceremony at this stone, in which they 'tied the sun' to halt its northward movement in the sky. Shamanic legends say that when sensitive persons touch their foreheads to the stone, the Intihuatana opens one's vision to the spirit world (the author had such an experience which is described in detail in chapter one). Intihuatana stones were the supremely sacred objects of the Inca people and were systematically searched for and destroyed by the Spaniards. When the Intihuatana stone was broken at an Inca shrine, the Inca believed that the deities of the place died or departed. The Spaniards never found Machu Pichu, even though they suspected its existence, thus the Intihuatana stone and its resident spirits remain in their original position. The mountain top sanctuary fell into disuse and was abandoned some forty years after the Spanish took Cuzco in 1533. Supply lines linking the many Inca social centers were disrupted and the great empire came to an end
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MAIN CEREMONIAL ENCLOSURE, MACHU PICHU PERU
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MACHU PICHU - sacred complex called tres ventanas (three windows)
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ROYAL TOMB - shows superb Inca stonecutting
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