Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu or Machu Pikchu (Quechua machu old, old person, pikchu peak; mountain or
prominence with a broad base which ends in sharp peaks, "old peak", pronunciation [ˈmɑtʃu ˈpixtʃu]) is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430
metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. It is located
in the Cusco Region, Urubamba
Province, Machupicchu District in Peru. It
is situated on a mountain ridge above the Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which
the Urubamba
River flows.
Most archaeologists believe that Machu
Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti
(1438–1472). Often mistakenly
referred to as the "Lost
City of the Incas", it is
perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.
The Incas built the estate
around 1450, but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the
outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the
American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important
tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in
order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked
like. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu
Picchu had been restored. The restoration work continues to this day.
Since the site was not known
to the Spanish during their conquest, it is highly significant as a relatively
intact cultural site. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary
in 1981 and a UNESCO
World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.
Machu Picchu was built in the
classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone
walls. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana (Hitching post of
the Sun), the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are
located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu.
Machu Picchu is vulnerable to
threats. While natural phenomena like earthquakes and weather systems can play
havoc with access, the site also suffers from the pressures of too many
tourists. In addition, preservation of the area's cultural and archaeological
heritage is an ongoing concern. Most notably, the removal of cultural artifacts
by the Bingham expeditions in the early 20th century gave rise to a long-term
dispute between the government of Peru and the custodian of the artifacts, Yale University.
History
Machu Picchu was built
around 1450, at the height of the Inca Empire. The construction of Machu Picchu appears to date from the period of
the two great Incas, Pachacutec Inca
Yupanqui (1438–71) and Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1472–93). It was abandoned just over 100 years later, in
1572, as a belated result of the Spanish Conquest. It is possible that most of
its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by
travelers before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the area. The latter had notes of a place
called Piccho, although there is no record of the Spanish having visited the
remote city. The types of sacred rocks defaced by the conquistadors in other
locations are untouched at Machu Picchu.
Hiram Bingham theorized that
the complex was the traditional birthplace of the Incan "Virgins of the Suns". More recent research by scholars such as John
Howland Rowe and Richard Burger, has convinced most archaeologists that Machu
Picchu was an estate of the Inca emperor Pachacuti. In addition, Johan Reinhard presented evidence that the site was
selected because of its position relative to sacred landscape features such as
its mountains that are purported to be in alignment with key astronomical
events important to the Incas.
Johan Reinhard believes Machu Picchu to be a sacred
religious site. This theory stands mainly because of where Machu Picchu is
located. Reinhard calls it "sacred geography" because the site is built on and around
mountains that hold high religious importance in the Inca culture and in the
previous culture that occupied the land. At the highest point of the mountain
which Machu Picchu was named after, there are "artificial platforms
[and] these had a religious function, as is clear from the Inca ritual
offerings found buried under them" (Reinhard 2007). These platforms
also are found in other Incan religious sites. The site’s other stone
structures have finely worked stones with niches and, from what the
"Spaniards wrote about Inca sites, we know that these [types of]
building[s] were of ritual significance" (Reinhard 2007). This would be
the most convincing evidence that Reinhard points out because this type of
stylistic stonework is only found at the religious sites so it would be natural
that they would exist at this religious site. Another theory maintains that
Machu Picchu was an Inca llaqta, a settlement built to control the economy of
conquered regions. Yet another asserts that it may have been built as a prison
for a select few who had committed heinous crimes against Inca society. An
alternative theory is that it is an agricultural testing station. Different
types of crops could be tested in the many different micro-climates afforded by
the location and the terraces; these were not large enough to grow food on a
large scale, but may have been used to determine what could grow where.
Although the citadel is located only about 80
kilometers (50 mi) from Cusco, the Inca capital, the Spanish never found it and
consequently did not plunder or destroy it, as they did many other sites. Over
the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew over much of the site, and few
outsiders knew of its existence.
On 24 July 1911, Hiram Bingham announced
the discovery of Machu Picchu to scholars. As an American historian employed as
a lecturer at Yale University, Bingham had been searching for the city of Vilcabamba, the last Inca refuge during
the Spanish conquest. Here, he mistakenly claimed that Machu Picchu was the
"last and lost city of the Incas." This theory was later debunked as
American explorer Gene Savoy reached Vilcabamba in 1964. Bingham had
worked for years in previous trips and explorations around the zone. Pablito
Alvarez, a local 11 year-old Quechua boy, led Bingham up to Machu Picchu. Some
Quechuas lived in the original structures at Machu Picchu.
Bingham started archaeological
studies and completed a survey of the area. Bingham made several more trips
and conducted excavations on the site through 1915, collecting various
artifacts which he took back to Yale. One of the more prominent
artifacts he recovered was a set of ceremonial Incan knives made from bismuth
bronze. These knives were molded in the 15th century and are the earliest known
artifacts containing bismuth bronze. Bingham wrote a number of books and
articles about the discovery of Machu Picchu, the most popular of which today
is "Lost City
of the Incas", a retrospective account
of his 1911 Yale expedition and his discovery of Machu Picchu, written in 1948
near the end of his life.
As Bingham's excavations took
place on Machu Picchu, local intellectuals began to oppose the operation of
Bingham and his team of explorers. Though local institutions were initially
enthused at the idea of the operation supplementing Peruvian knowledge about
their ancestry, the team began to encounter accusations of legal and cultural
malpractice. Local landowners began to demand payments of rent from the
excavation team, and rumors arose about Bingham and his team stealing artifacts
and smuggling them out of Peru through the bordering country of Bolivia. These accusations worsened when the local press
caught wind of the rumors and helped to discredit the legitimacy of the
excavation, branding the practice as harmful to the site and claiming that
local archaeologists were being deprived of their rightful knowledge about
their own history because of the intrusive excavations of the American archaeologists. By the
time Bingham and his team left Machu Picchu locals began forming coalitions in
order to defend their deserved ownership of Machu Picchu and its cultural
remains, while Bingham claimed the artifacts ought to be studied by experts in
American institutions, an argument that still exists today.
The site received significant
publicity after the National
Geographic Society devoted their entire April 1913 issue to Machu
Picchu.
In 1981 Peru declared an area of 325.92 square kilometres (125.84 sq mi) surrounding Machu Picchu as
a "Historical Sanctuary". In addition to the ruins, the
sanctuary includes a large portion of the adjoining region, rich with the flora
and fauna of the Peruvian Yungas and
Central Andean wet puna ecoregions.
In 1983 UNESCO designated Machu
Picchu a World Heritage Site, describing it as "an absolute masterpiece of
architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization".
The World Monuments Fund placed Machu Picchu on
its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world because of
environmental degradation. This has resulted from the impact of tourism,
uncontrolled development in the nearby town of Aguas Calientes, which
included a poorly sited tram to ease visitor access, and the construction of a
bridge across theVilcanota River, which is likely to bring even more
tourists to the site, in defiance of a court order and government protests
against it.
In media
The 1954 film Secret of the Incas was filmed by
Paramount Pictures on location at Cusco and Machu Picchu, the first time that a
major Hollywood studio filmed on site. Five hundred indigenous people were hired
as extras in the film.
Machu Picchu also is featured prominently in the 2004
film, The Motorcycle Diaries, a biopic based on the 1952 youthful travel memoir of Marxist revolutionary
Che Guevara.
NOVA TV Documentary "Ghosts of Machu Picchu"
presents an elaborate documentary on the mysteries of Machu Picchu.
The song "Kilimanjaro" from the 2010 South Indian Tamil film Enthiran was filmed in Machu
Picchu. The sanction for filming was granted only after direct intervention from
the Indian government.
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