The Riddle of Machu Picchu

There in the cloud forest of the Andes mountains, 2,000 feet above the roaring river below, Bingham believed he had stumbled upon the fabled “Lost City of the Incas.” But was it really that?


In 1911, the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu was discovered by chance by mountaineer and archaeologist Hiram Bingham. He was in Peru with three companions to climb the highest mountains of the region, and he had been impressed by Inca ruins two years earlier when he visited South America on a Yale University tour of ceremonial sites. A wealthy explorer, he was fascinated by the idea of Peru’s legendary “lost city,” which had disappeared with the Inca civilization in the 1500s.


By chance in 1911, the Peruvian government had blasted a rough trail through the river gorges to make a new road that would aid in transporting products such as cocoa, sugar, and rubber from the Amazon. Bingham was one of the first to use the road in his search for lost Inca sites. As a climber, he decided at one point to scramble up through the dense rainforest around him with a companion and an Indian guide, and he unexpectedly arrived at mid-day at a high Indian farm 1,000 feet above the plunging river.


With a 10-year old Indian boy as a guide, Bingham kept on climbing. He suddenly came upon “a magnificent flight of stone agricultural terraces, rising 1,000 feet up the mountainside.” He climbed upwards for an hour more and found himself finally in a deep forest above these terraces, surrounded by stone buildings, including a temple made of granite blocks that had been cut with the amazing precision of Inca stonemasons. Bingham wrote:“ Surprise followed surprise in bewildering succession. I climbed a marvelous stairway of granite blocks, walked along a pampa where the Indians had a small vegetable garden, and came to a clearing in which were two of the finest structures I had ever seen. Not only were there blocks of beautifully grained white granite, the ashlars [squared blocks] were of Cyclopean size, some 10 feet in length and higher than a man. I was spellbound.”


The Riddle of Macu PicchuMachu Picchu was an astonishing 20th century archaeological discovery, but it was also a puzzle. Modern researchers such as Yale’s Richard L. Burger and Lucy Salazar (co-curators of Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas) believe that Machu Picchu was a royal retreat or country palace, used by the great Inca Emperor Pachacuti and his guests as a place to relax, feast, hunt, and engage in ritual activities related to his divine kingship. In modern American terms, Burger calls it a “Camp David” for the Inca Sun God and his followers.


For decades, beginning with Bingham’s theories, the mystery of the site has provoked various interpretations: that it was an ancient military stronghold, or that it was the last holdout of the Incas against the invading Conquistadors in the 16th century. Some believed it was an isolated religious sanctuary where nuns and priests worshipped the sun.


Burger and Salazar argue that it was active for less than 100 years, and that it was a summer palace for the Inca elite from Cuzco, the empire's capital. Situated magnificently in the Peruvian Andes, it was populated seasonally by the ruling Inca and several hundred craftsmen and other servants necessary to carry on the affairs of estate and government.


Many of the buildings in Mach Picchu show signs of having religious or spiritual significance.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2YBVlgqqco&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbBu8Sikhtc&feature=player_embedded
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/regions-places/south-america/peru_machupicchu.html