Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site situated on a mountain ridge high above the Urubamba Valley in Peru.

Archaeologically shows the site is typical Inca in style with polished dry-stone walls.
In 1981 Machu Picchu was proclaimed as a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary, also a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983.

Machu Picchu was established around 1462 probably as a traditional birthplace of the Inca of the “Virgins of the Suns”.

Some sources, however, claim that the site was an Inca “llaqta”, a prison, an agricultural testing station as well as an estate of the Inca emperor Pachacuti.

The Machu Picchu was abandoned about 100 years after its establishment.

Over the years the site was gradually covered by the surrounding jungle and became almost undetectable. Only a few people were aware of its existence.

In 1911 the American historian Hiram Bingham was taken to the place of a local 11 year old boy named Pablito Alvarez. Bingham was quite attracted to the place and undertook to examine it. After years of examination he finally reached the citadel by Quechuans. He named the site “The lost City of the Incas” and dedicated numbers of articles and books to the discovery of it.

The main buildings of Machu Picchu were constructed by polished dry-stones while the others were built using mortar. Constructions built of mortar were not of particularly great importance.

Architectural the buildings were so constructed as to withstand earthquakes.
It is not yet clear how the Incas managed to move the heavy stone blocks although it is believed that they have done it by using hundreds of men to push the stones up inclined planes.

Machu Picchu includes about 140 structures and featured among which are numbers of sanctuaries, temples, parks as well as several residences.

There are three main districts in the urban sector of the site, the Sacred District, the Popular District and the District of the Priests and the Nobility.

In 2008 Macho Picchu was listed by the World Monuments Fund as one of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world.

Address:
Macho Picchu
Urubamba Province
Cusco State
Peru