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Viewing the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu
Last month I fulfilled a lifelong dream by taking a trip to Peru with my son, Matt, Bill Longnecker, and Craig Larson, three of the best traveling companions ever. Our goal was to view the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu, high in the Andes Mountains.
Peru is 80 percent mountainous; some of the mountains are over 20,000 feet in elevation. There is very little land that we would consider farmable in the whole country. Nevertheless, in the middle of the 15th Century the great Inca leader, Pachacuti began subduing smaller South American tribes, and in the process created one of the largest Empires of the ancient world, extending from the present day Bolivia to the southern boundaries of Chile, with his Capitol in Cuzco, in southern Peru (13,000-foot elevation).
The Incas worshipped the Sun God, Inti, and the most important structure in each city was the Temple of the Sun God. These Temples were always built at the highest point, the point nearest the sun. The Temple of the Sun God in Cuzco had a Cloister attached, in which lived 100 virgins whose duty it was to tend to the Temple.
There were a number of things that we generally believe that successful civilizations need, yet the Incas had none of these. The Incas did not have the horse, and knew nothing of the wheel, yet they had miles and miles of good roads, made passable in all weather by laying down paving stones. They did not have a written language, yet they communicated quickly and accurately throughout the empire by using relays of swift runners carrying quipus (an elaborate system of knotted cords). They knew nothing of the arch, so important in European buildings, so none of the ancient buildings were over two stories tall, but were such skilled stonemasons that their buildings exist to this day.
The ancient Incas also had no need for prisons. Not that all the people conformed to the law, but punishment was usually death. If someone stole, murdered, or had sex with a Sun Virgin he was thrown off a cliff, hands were cut off, eyes cut out, or he was hung up by his hands along the road and left to starve to death. No second chances.
But everything changed in 1531, with the arrival of Pizzaro and his 168 Spanish Conquistadors. Pizzaro managed to capture the head Inca, Atahualpa, and demanded that his followers fill a room with gold as ransom. They did, but Pizzaro had him strangled anyway. Then the Conquistadors systematically proceeded to ransack all of the Inca cities (The Spanish brought small pox, which killed almost half of the 500,000 Incas).
Legend has it that the 100 Sun Virgins from the Cuzco Temple managed to escape to Machu Picchu, some 100 miles to the north. There the Sun Virgins lived out their days. (Recently a tomb was discovered beneath one of the buildings containing the skeletal remains of almost 100 bodies---all women.)
The first sight of Machu Picchu almost takes your breath away. It is built on a high narrow ridge between two higher mountains. The Urubamba River, 2,000 feet below, borders the city on three sides, and eventually flows into the Amazon River. The great Inca leader, Pachacuti, and his predecessors, built Machu Picchu as a royal retreat and religious center. It never was a large city---perhaps 1500 people lived there at any one time. It was begun in about 1450 and abandoned about 1550, why, no one is quite sure. The Spanish apparently never did find Machu Picchu, so the city is largely in tact, escaping the ravage that was directed against so many Inca cities.
The city lay abandoned, and largely forgotten until 1911. In that year Hiram Bingham, a Yale professor, led an expedition to find "The Lost City of the Incas". The city was so overgrown with vines and foliage that it was invisible from below. But Bingham's articles in National Geographic sparked the interest of the world in this "Lost City." Today, it is one of the most visited sites of a "Lost Civilization" in the world.
Machu Picchu is beautiful. The grounds are well maintained by some 50 full time workers. A herd of llamas diligently work at keeping the grass mowed. There is a wealth of native flora at Machu Picchu -- over 100 varieties of orchids alone.
The Inca were master stonemasons. All of the walls of the homes, temples, and terraces were carved out of stone quarried at the site. All were constructed without mortar. The rocks used were shaped, and smoothed without the use of steel instruments. Many times natural occurring rocks were used as the foundations for walls, and other rocks were built around them. Incredibly large granite rocks, for lintels over a doorway, or foundation stones were moved into place using sheer manpower.
The walls of some buildings and temples are much finer than others. The more important the personage or the deity, the finer the workmanship on that building. On Pachacuti's home, and the Sun God Temple, the building blocks fit so tight a knife blade can not be inserted between them. Though constructed more than 500 years ago, using no mortar, and resisting who knows how many earthquakes, the walls are in tact and in good shape. A thatched roof would bring them back to original condition.
The Inca were not only skilled stone workers, they were gifted engineers. They understood the use of water, and how to direct it. From springs in the mountains above they directed water into troughs, chiseled from stone. The slope of the waterways is precise, steep enough to keep the water flowing, but not so steep that the water would erode the stone. This water was directed into 16 water fountains, in various parts of the city. Overflow was directed to a central drainage waterway, which divides the city homes from the agriculture terraces. Though the troughs and waterways had been unused for centuries, when the grass and debris was cleared away the water system began to work again as it had in the days of Pachacuti.
One cannot go from one place to another in Machu Picchu without ascending or descending steps. Since the Inca did not have the wheel there were no carts, so many of the streets are simply a series of (narrow) steps, easily scaled by llamas, not so easily by people. I believe it is safe to say that the Inca did not invent the "ranch type" house.
We learned that the Inca used two types of terraces. One type was for raising crops. They were meticulously constructed, using large stones, then smaller ones, then topped off with topsoil brought up, via llama power, from the river valley. This was cropland for the city. The other type of terrace was similarly built, but was used to keep the mountain from eroding and letting the city slide into the valley.
Apparently rainfall was sufficient so that it is believed that other than runoff from the city's water supply there was no attempt to irrigate crops.
Machu Picchu has taken on mystical qualities for many people. Poets and musicians come here to write their sonnets and sing their songs, as they gaze over the city, or out over the river valley. Shirley McLaine, has written about supernatural experiences she experienced at the site, and people have and connected the builders of Machu Picchu to the gigantic Nazca drawings, also in Peru, that can only be recognized from an airplane. Some believe that Machu Picchu and the drawings both had to have been made by aliens.
I don't know about any of these theories, but I can attest that Machu Picchu is a beautiful, peaceful place to visit, and I can now cross it off my "to see someday" list.