The ancient Incan citadel of Machu Picchu was rediscovered by an American archaeologist on this day in 1911. Perched on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes, the complex was built about 500 years ago, at the height of the Inca Empire. The city is made up of about 200 buildings, including temples, houses, and baths, and it's roughly divided into an agricultural sector and an urban sector. Its many levels are connected by 3,000 steps, and there are sophisticated irrigation channels and fountains to distribute water. The stone blocks that form the structures were shaped using hard river rocks alone, without the use of steel or iron chisels, and they fit so tightly together that a knife blade can't be slipped between them.
One secret to the site's preservation is its terrace system. The terraces provided ample places to grow crops, and they also helped the city cope with the heavy annual rainfall by providing a drainage system. The bottom layer of each terrace consisted of the stone bits that were chipped away during construction of the buildings. On top of that layer were smaller stone chips, and sand, and then topsoil. Excess water could drain down through these layers and be channeled away; without the terraces, mudslides would have carried Machu Picchu down the mountain long ago. The terraces also provide some protection against invasion, as their structure slows down any enemy's progress toward the mountaintop.
It's believed that Machu Picchu was built to be a resort or estate for Incan nobility, although it may also have been a religious site. It was abandoned after a hundred years, at the time of the Spanish conquest. It's not clear why the Incans left, though, because there's no evidence that Spanish conquerors ever found the site. It's possible that an epidemic of smallpox, carried by the Spanish, wiped out the population.
Scholar Hiram Bingham was in Peru in search of the lost Incan capital, Vitcos. As he traveled down the Urubamba River valley, Bingham would ask locals if they knew of any ruins in the area. One day, a farmer told Bingham about a ruined city on top of one of the nearby mountains, and offered to serve as a guide. As Bingham and his party drew close to the site, they were surprised to see families living in the area and farming on some of the lower terraces of Machu Picchu. One of the children, an 11-year-old boy named Pablito, guided Bingham's party the rest of the way to the top of the mountain. Eager to push on and find more ruins, Bingham didn't take the time to get a really good look at it, but he returned the following year, and his team spent four months clearing away vegetation and beginning to restore the buildings. Bingham helped himself to several artifacts, which he took back to Yale with him, much to the displeasure of the Peruvian government and people. Finally, in 2010, the Peruvian government successfully petitioned President Obama for the return of the artifacts.
Near the end of his life, Bingham wrote an account of his discovery: Lost City of the Incas (1948). He embellished his tale in many ways, exaggerating how long it took him to get to the ruin, how treacherous the trails were, how thick the jungle was, and how remote the site was from any established settlements. Bingham's son Alfred later cut his father's tall tale down to a more manageable size: armed with letters that his father wrote to his mother in 1911, Alfred Bingham clarified that his father's journey took about an hour and a half, on fairly modern and well-traveled roads through a populous farming community.
The so-called lost city was never lost to the locals, but Bingham was one of the first outsiders to see it. And it's certainly no secret these days - hundreds of thousands of people visit Machu Picchu every year. It's one of the largest tourist attractions in South America, and all the traffic and nearby construction is taking a toll on the site.
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| Inca stone work |
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| Hanu Picchu which we climbed |
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| Terraces |
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