Machu Picchu

The Machu Picchu (of the Quechua “old mountain”, and sometimes called “the lost city of Incas”) is an old city INCA, perched on the heights of the Andes cordillera. Today ruins some, it is located at an altitude of 2350 meters, in the Vallée of Urubamba, with the Peru. The crowned city Machu Picchu , forgotten during centuries, was revealed in the world by the American Archéologue Hiram Bingham of the University of Yale, which wrote a best-seller on this subject. This archaeological site précolombien, located at 130 km in the North-West of Cuzco to the Peru, is regarded as the archeological site the most important INCA of Peru. July 7th, 2007, the place was indicated like one of the Seven new wonders of the world by a nonofficial organization and related to commercial (NewOpenWorld Foundation).

Geographical location

The site is in the east of the Andes cordillera, at the beginnings of the Amazon forest. The ruins are with horse between two rises in the ground. One is the Huayna Picchu, meaning young mountain . It is this mountain which overhangs the site on the majority of the images of the city. According to certain visual angles, it is possible to decree there the shape of an human face looking towards the sky, the top of Huayna Picchu being the nose. The other mountain is the Machu Picchu, meaning old mountain . It is this mountain, contrary to Huayna Picchu, which gave its name to the archeological site. Around Huayna Picchu and on the two sides of the city the river Urubamba runs which describes a large arc below a cliff of 600 meters.

History

It is thought today that the city was built under the reign of the emperor Pachacutec who began in 1440. The city was abandoned, probably before the Spanish invasion of 1532. According to the archaeological research carried out on the site, Machu Picchu was not a traditional city, but rather a spiritual place. The site comprises ruins of temples in the enclosure protected from the city. It is believed that the place probably did not lodge more than 750 personnes.
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The abandoned city was updated by the Westerners only at the 20th century: the July 24th 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American historian of Yale which carried out research on the lost city of Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the INCA. It was accompanied by its guides, the sergeant Carrasco and the peasant Melchor Arteaga. Hiram Bingham took part in the first excavations on the site, and thanks to its book Lost City off the Incas ( the lost City of Incas ), made this place famous in the world. In 1913, the National Geographic Society entirely devoted the April issue of of its magazine to Machu Picchu. Peru tries today to recover, near various museums and collectors, the hundreds of objects that Bingham withdrew site.

Current location

Since 1981, Machu Picchu belongs to a natural reserve of 325,92 km ², from which the goal is to protect not only the archeological site, but also local fauna and the flora. One notices there in particular an abundant presence of Orchidée S sauvages.
In 1983, UNESCO registered the site on the Liste of the world heritage.

In 2004, some: 400000 tourists visited Machu Picchu, and UNESCO since expressed its fears that the too significant number tourists does not degrade the site. According to the Peruvian authorities, the distance and the difficulty of access to the site impose themselves of the natural limits on the expansion of tourism. Regularly, of the proposals are made to install a cable car to join the site, but they all were rejected until now.

July 7th, 2007, the site of Machu Picchu was indicated as being one of the seven " nouvelles" wonders of the world, according to a discussed contest having mobilized 100 million people on Internet.

Archaeological center

From its architectural richness , Machu Picchu is one of the archaeological sites most important of the Latin America.

According to the archeologists, Machu Picchu is divided into three great sectors: the crowned district, popular quarters and the district of noble and the ecclesiastics. The crowned zone is dedicated to Inti, the god sun, principal divinity of the Pantheon INCA. It is here that are the archaeological treasures most important: the solar clock (Intihuatana) and the temple of the Sun.

All constructions of Machu Picchu are of style traditional INCA; some rare walls on the site are composed of perfectly adjusted stones, the whole of constructions, contrary to the other sites of the area, making up of stones surprisingly not adjusted. Incas did not make use of cement on their sites but on that of Machu Picchu, the majority of the walls and the buildings consist of very irregular stones, disjoined and filled with ground between them. The granite of the stones used for the construction of the site came from careers moved away, which required a very advanced engineering to make assemble blocks of stone being able to weigh several tons until the top of the mountain.

In September 2007, the department of archeology of Yale decides to restore more than 350 archaeological parts in Peru. The prestigious American university finances a great road show as well as the construction of a museum in the town of Cuzco.

Cultural references

One of the most famous works of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is entitled the heights of Machu Picchu :

Machu Picchu be a viaje with serenidad LED alma, with the eterna fusión idiot el cosmos, allí sentimos will nuestra fragilidad. Es una of mow maravillas más large of Suramérica. A reposar of mariposas in el epicentro LED gran círculo of emptied. Otro milagro más. Machu Picchu is a voyage to the serenity of the heart, with eternal fusion with cosmos, over there we feel our own brittleness. It is one of the greatest wonders of South America. A harbor of butterflies to the epicentre of the large circle of the life. A miracle of plus.

Photographs

General sights

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