Machu Picchu

Interesting facts

At midday on 11 November and 30 January the sun stands almost directly above the Intihuatana stone, so its pillar casts no shadow.

The site was built over geological faults, which researchers think gave the Inca ready access to already fractured rock for building stone.

About 104 caves and rock shelters around the site served as burial places, holding the remains of some 174 people.

Hiram Bingham shipped thousands of artefacts, from ceramics to silver figurines and human bones, to Yale University, which returned the last of them in 2012.

Machu Picchu sits at about 2,430 metres, more than 1,000 metres lower than Cusco, which gave it a noticeably milder climate than the Inca capital.

Llamas and alpacas, which naturally live around 4,000 metres, were brought down from the high puna to supply meat and wool.

The terraces covered only about five hectares, too little to feed the residents, so much of the food was carried in from surrounding valleys.

Lizárraga's 1902 charcoal inscription was left on the Temple of the Three Windows, nine years before Bingham's arrival.

In 2007 Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a global poll.

Why it is worth it

Machu Picchu sits on a narrow saddle between two peaks in the Andes above the Urubamba River, which loops around the site on three sides at the foot of cliffs some 450 metres high. Morning mist rises out of the gorge and drifts across the terraces, and Huayna Picchu, the sharp peak behind the ruins, appears and disappears in it. The name means roughly "old peak" in Quechua; the builders may actually have called the place Huayna Picchu, or simply Picchu, and the modern name seems to have become attached to the ruins through Hiram Bingham's publications after 1911.

The estate was built in the 15th century, most likely for the Inca emperor Pachacuti after his conquest of the Urubamba valley, as a royal retreat rather than a town. Radiocarbon dating of human remains places its occupation from around 1420 to about 1530. Perhaps 750 people lived there, mostly retainers drawn from many parts of the empire; genetic studies show that they came from the Andes, the coast, Ecuador and Amazonia. The place was abandoned in the upheaval of the Spanish conquest and slowly overgrown, known to local farmers but not to the wider world. The Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga reached it in 1902 and left his name in charcoal on a wall; Bingham, led up by a farmer in 1911, made it famous.

The finest buildings are in the upper sector, built in classic Inca dry masonry: granite blocks cut and fitted so closely that no mortar was needed. The Temple of the Sun is a curved tower rising from a cave-like hollow among boulders; the Temple of the Three Windows stands on the Sacred Plaza; and on a terraced knoll stands the Intihuatana, a carved ritual stone whose name means "place where the sun is tied". Around them run agricultural terraces covering nearly five hectares, stairways, houses and storehouses. Machu Picchu has been a World Heritage Site, both cultural and natural, since 1983.

Getting there

Most visitors come by train from Cusco or Ollantaytambo to the town of Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu Pueblo) at the foot of the mountain, then take the bus up an 8.6 km road or walk. The classic Inca Trail, which needs a permit and must be booked through an agency, ends at the Sun Gate above the ruins. Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport (CUZ) in Cusco is about 78 km away in a straight line.

From the encyclopaedia

Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge at 2,430 meters (7,970 ft). It is situated in the Machupicchu District of Urubamba Province about 80 kilometers northwest of Cusco, above the Sacred Valley and along the Urubamba River, which forms a deep canyon with a subtropical mountain climate.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Machu Picchu

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia