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Concept
Machu Picchu
Summary
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge. Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of the Inca Empire. It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, which is northwest of Cusco. The Urubamba River flows past it, cutting through the Cordillera and creating a canyon with a tropical mountain climate. In reference to the site’s name, for most speakers of English or Spanish, the first 'c' in Picchu is silent. In English, the name is pronounced ˌmɑːtʃuː_ˈpiːtʃuː or ˌmætʃuː_ˈpiːktʃuː, in Spanish as ˈmatʃu ˈpitʃu or ˈmatʃu ˈpiɣtʃu, and in Quechua (Machu Pikchu) as ˈmatʃʊ ˈpɪktʃʊ.
The Inca civilization had no written language and, after the discovery by a Spanish soldier Baltasar Ocampo, by the end of the 16th-century no more Europeans visited the site until the 19th century, so far as is known, so there are no written records of the site while it was in use. The names of the buildings, their supposed uses, and their inhabitants are the product of modern archaeologists based on physical evidence, including tombs at the site. Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Temple of the Three Windows. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give visitors a better idea of how they originally appeared. By 1976, 30% of Machu Picchu had been restored and restoration continues. Most recent archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later, at the time of the Spanish conquest. According to the new AMS radiocarbon dating, it was occupied from c. 1420–1532. Historical research published in 2022 claims that the site was probably called Huayna Picchu by the Inca people themselves, as it exists on the smaller peak of the same name.
Official source
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