Definition of Machu Picchu

At the top of the Peruvian Andes there are the ruins of an ancient city, known by the name of Machu Picchu. In it you can find strange altars and constructions made of granite. The Inca people were the ones who erected this enigmatic city and for this they did not use the wheel or iron tools, simply carved stones placed with great skill and precision.

Riddles to be solved

Machu Picchu has more than two hundred structures. Some appear to be houses and other temples and all of them receive Water current. In the city there is no written information or sculptures that can suggest some ideas or values. At its highest point is a pillar whose true purpose is unknown.

The first enigma that archaeologists ask themselves is how it was possible that their builders raised the rocks to such a high height. Second, they wonder why they built it in such an inaccessible location. A third puzzle still to be solved is the reason for which Machu Picchu was abandoned.

Finding meaning in legacy of Machu Picchu is the challenge of the archaeologists who work in its ruins.

What we know about Machu PIcchu and the Incas

Researchers agree on some issues. Thus, the Incas came to power around the middle of the 15th century. It was a people with great knowledge about engineering and although they did not have one writingconventional, they used their own system of calculation known as Quipu.

Much of what we know about the Incas comes from the chronicles of the Spanish conquerors. Thus, we know that they were fierce warriors who subdued other peoples and fed their people transforming steep slopes into lands of culture with slopes and terraces.

His power was maintained for a period of approximately one hundred years, as his empire was decimated by diseases, by a war civil and finally by the Spanish conquerors. The last Inca emperor withdrew to the mountains, specifically to the city of Vilcabamba, where they resisted for 35 years, until the Spanish destroyed the city in 1572.

More than 300 years after the defeat of the Incas, an explorer named Hiram Bimgham was determined to find some trace of the mysterious disappearance of the Incas. In 1911 he was the first Westerner to find the lost city, Machu Picchu.

Photos: Fotolia - Pakhnyushchyy / Jkraft5