According to Giulio Magli, professor of archaeoastronomy at Milan's Polytechnic University, Machu Picchu was the ideal counterpart of the Island of Sun, a rocky islet in the southern part of Lake Titicaca.
"This island had a very important sanctuary which was a destination of pilgrimage. An apparently insignificant rock was believed to be the place of birth of the sun, and therefore of the Inca civilization.
The Inca, who ruled the largest empire on Earth by the time their last emperor, Atahualpa, was garroted by Spanish conquistadors in 1533, believed that the sun god was their ancestor.
Surrounded on three sides by the gorges of the Urubamba River (also called the Vilcanota River), and tucked between two massive mountain peaks — the Huayna Picchu and the Machu Picchu — the Inca city features about 200 stone structures and was probably inhabited by no more than 750 people. It is perched some 8,000 feet in the clouds.
After its abandonment at the time of the Spanish conquest, it was lost to the jungle for nearly 500 years, and was then discovered by Hiram Bingham, an American explorer, in 1911 (although recent studies claim that it was actually discovered 40 years earlier by an obscure German entrepreneur).
Theories about the city's function abound. Machu Picchu has been wrongly identified as the traditional birthplace of the Inca people, their final stronghold, and a sacred center occupied by virgins devoted to the sun god.
Another recent interpretation, based on archival research published in the mid-1980s, and widely supported by scholars, suggests the spectacular site was a private estate of the emperor Pachacuti, who built it around 1460 A.D.
"Any interpretation is doomed to remain speculative. Machu Picchu remains a mystery. We do not know for sure what the Inca called it, we do not know when and why it was constructed, or why it was abandoned," Magli said.
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The theory du jour...next week someone will declare it was built by Incas in preparation for an invasion of aliens or imminent Global Warming...
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- curtisreed
- 5 months ago
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either way this place is incredible. i was just there a month ago and it blew me away. my favorite facts about the place:
incas didnt have metal tools or the wheel to build it, the rocks used are 80% quartz, they used hematite to cut rocks, no motar, 10 ton rocks, good vibes.......there are so many theories, i am just glad the spanish never found it.
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- phillyphil
- 5 months ago
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This is definitely on my "To See Before Death" list.
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- Veganomica
- 5 months ago
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it would certainly be a place to visit. I just scoff at the "scientific" conclusions that are drawn because, over the course of my years, I recall having read so many contradictory opinions over what certain artifacts "mean"and what it implies about the societies they study.
Case in point: when I was a kid, the prevailing thought about the Maya was that they were a peaceful people that coexisted with their neighbors and nature. Now we know that is not true.
Another trend was to see the Aztec culture as a highly advanced society that tragically was destroyed by the Spanish (it can be said that it is a tragedy that it was destroyed), when in fact they were standing on the shoulders of the Toltecs, were a brutal, ruthless regime that terrorized their neighbors who in turn were more than eager to ally themselves with "Quetzalcoatl" Cortez and rid themselves of the Aztec tyrrany. Here in the SouthWest of the USA, similar conclusions were drawn about the cliff dwellers that the archaeologists called the "Anazasi". We now know that they were the ancestors of the Pueblo indians who resent the term "Anazasi" because it is a Navajo term meaning "the enemies", and the Navajo are a tribe that arrived later, settled the area and engaged in armed conflict with the original inhabitants, the Puebloans. The Anazasi were in turn portrayed as peaceful people until continued research indicated brutal warfare, cannibalism, and witchcraft practices may have contributed to the conflicts that drove them to abandon their large kivas on the desert floor and seek shelter in the cliffs.
I guess my point is that the archaeologists impose their own cosmovision and the current politically correct viewpoints upon their findings and often come to erroneous conclusions that are treated as "the latest" realization, and it's just a theory. It might be right, but it might not be.
In the end, we can agree that Maccho Pichu is a gorgeous location and a wonderful tourist destination.
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- curtisreed
- 5 months ago
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Looks like a time share condo project that became the victim of a sub prime mortgage scam.
It was Bush’s fault. -
My homeland! <3
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- jimenagamio
- 5 months ago
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Machu Picchu will always remain a mystery
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- jimenagamio
- 5 months ago
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hogwash! Everyone knows Machu Picchu was an R&R spot for aliens!
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- SamuraiDave
- 5 months ago
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