On to Machu Picchu!
We spent half a day at Machu Picchu. We quickly realized that the prior Inca ruins we had seen around Cusco were a mere warm up for Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is HUGE, and all the Inca concepts we learned in earlier days were exquisitely displayed in grand fashion at Machu Picchu, which includes "urban" areas as well as industrial, agricultural and temple areas.
Because they lived on mountains, the Incas used terracing to grow their crops. There was plenty of terracing at Machu Picchu for growing crops. But farmers are always tinkering, trying to figure out how to get better crop yields - and the Incas were no different. In this section, of Machu Picchu, they found evidence that they conducting crop experiments in each square - slightly different crops or conditions, to see what worked best.
3. The mountains were incredibly important to the Incas, and they showed it in their architecture.
The Incas named all the mountains around Machu Picchu - Old Mountain, Young Mountain, etc.
Then they reflected those same mountains in their buildings. Below is a stone slab that was fashioned to look like those very same mountains (each peak on the stone below is a different mountain - there are lots of layers of mountains around Machu Picchu). Trust me, if the clouds had cooperated when we took the picture, the likeness between the stone slab and the mountains would have been very striking :-)
The Incas also ensure their living area didn't just have representations of mountains - but it also pointed to the mountains. Below is a picture of a sun dial. The based of the sundial is an odd shape with long points - each of which points to a major mountain.
There were a lot of buildings packed into not a lot of space - here's an idea of the alleyways and stairs in this section:
5. If the Spaniards didn't get to Machu Picchu, what happened to all the Incas?
Remember my first Inca blog mentioned that there were a total of 14 Inca kings, but #9 was the main king. He made a major expansion of the Inca empire, but he did it by waging war with everyone around - essentially making alot of enemies.
So when the Spaniards came to "Inca Land," they attacked the Incas. The folks in Machu Picchu left to defend their follow Incas in the lower elevations. Any remaining non-Incas took advantage of the opportunity to further weaken the remaining population in Machu Picchu, until ultimately, the population at Machu Picchu was no longer sustainable. And so the area eventually became overgrown with vegetation, waiting to be found in 1950.
The moral of this story is.....
Treat your neighbors right - they may someday treat you the way you treated them!
Earlier I had mentioned that the Spaniards destroyed the Inca temples and replaced them with Catholic Churches. That was true in Cusco, but not for Machu Picchu, which is much higher in elevation and quite a challenge to get to. Fortunately for us, you can take a bus much of the way up the mountain, and you only have to hike the last several hundred steps in the very thin air. For those of you diehards, you CAN still hike the entire thing....
Because Machu Picchu is SO high up and the Spaniards couldn't get to it, Machu Picchu remains in excellent condition, and was only discovered relatively recently around 1950. The exact date of discovery depends on whether you believe it was first discovered by a Yale professor named Bingham, or a Peruvian peasant. Our Peruvian tour guide was adamant the peasant found it first!
A few other things we learned about Machu Picchu:
Because Machu Picchu is SO high up and the Spaniards couldn't get to it, Machu Picchu remains in excellent condition, and was only discovered relatively recently around 1950. The exact date of discovery depends on whether you believe it was first discovered by a Yale professor named Bingham, or a Peruvian peasant. Our Peruvian tour guide was adamant the peasant found it first!
A few other things we learned about Machu Picchu:
1. The design of Machu Picchu was totally driven by the sun.
Because the Incas worshipped the sun as a primary god, Machu Picchu, like all other Inca cities was built in the side of the mountain facing east.
Additionally, the sun temple had a window placed so that on the day of the winter solstice, the sun would shine through the window and directly into the altar. (We saw a photo taken at that time, and the effect was very dramatic.) On the photo below, the large flat stone is the altar. The larger window on the end of the altar is where the sun would come in at sunrise on the winter solstice.
2. The Incas were into agricultural experimentation.
Because they lived on mountains, the Incas used terracing to grow their crops. There was plenty of terracing at Machu Picchu for growing crops. But farmers are always tinkering, trying to figure out how to get better crop yields - and the Incas were no different. In this section, of Machu Picchu, they found evidence that they conducting crop experiments in each square - slightly different crops or conditions, to see what worked best.
3. The mountains were incredibly important to the Incas, and they showed it in their architecture.
The Incas named all the mountains around Machu Picchu - Old Mountain, Young Mountain, etc.
Then they reflected those same mountains in their buildings. Below is a stone slab that was fashioned to look like those very same mountains (each peak on the stone below is a different mountain - there are lots of layers of mountains around Machu Picchu). Trust me, if the clouds had cooperated when we took the picture, the likeness between the stone slab and the mountains would have been very striking :-)
The Incas also ensure their living area didn't just have representations of mountains - but it also pointed to the mountains. Below is a picture of a sun dial. The based of the sundial is an odd shape with long points - each of which points to a major mountain.
4. Life in the residential (urban) district....
Lest you think the Incas focused solely on crops, mountains and sun gods, they had some pretty neat houses too. Here's one of them. It's a two-story wonder - the first floor is living space, complete with the insets in the wall we became so used to seeing, for placing your decorations or Inca gods. The second story was for storing your crops. The roof would have been made of thatch. Not bad for folks living on top of a mountain 500 years ago.....
5. If the Spaniards didn't get to Machu Picchu, what happened to all the Incas?
Remember my first Inca blog mentioned that there were a total of 14 Inca kings, but #9 was the main king. He made a major expansion of the Inca empire, but he did it by waging war with everyone around - essentially making alot of enemies.
So when the Spaniards came to "Inca Land," they attacked the Incas. The folks in Machu Picchu left to defend their follow Incas in the lower elevations. Any remaining non-Incas took advantage of the opportunity to further weaken the remaining population in Machu Picchu, until ultimately, the population at Machu Picchu was no longer sustainable. And so the area eventually became overgrown with vegetation, waiting to be found in 1950.
The moral of this story is.....
Treat your neighbors right - they may someday treat you the way you treated them!
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