Karen's Dangling Conversation: Machu Picchu Onward and Upward!

So we walked over to the bus station and headed up the mountain toward Macu Picchu. I have to say that the Andes Mountains are amazing. The Sacred Valley is something too but the mountains are just gorgeous. It was a breath taking ride up to the site.

Here we are ready to roll on the bus.....next stop Machu Picchu.

I'm posting a little bit about the site here for future reference for me and maybe there is something here you would like to know too. The truth is no one really knows what Machu Picchu is why it was built or what it was really used for. Everything the experts say is just an educated guess. It truly is a magical place and I love that it is still shrouded in mystery. So if you are not interested in the facts just scoot on down for some really fun pictures! Thanks for reading!

A smidgen about the history:

Machu Picchu was built around 1450, at the height of the Inca Empire.^[6] The construction of Machu Picchu appears to date from the period of the two great Incas, Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (1438-71) and Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1472-93).^[7] It was abandoned just over 100 years later, in 1572, as a belated result of the Spanish Conquest.^[6]^[8] It is possible that most of its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by travelers before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the area.^[9] The latter had notes of a place called Piccho, although there is no record of the Spanish having visited the remote city. The types of sacred rocks defaced by the conquistadors in other locations are untouched at Machu Picchu. ^[8]

Hiram Bingham theorized that the complex was the traditional birthplace of the Incan "Virgins of the Suns".^[10] More recent research by scholars such as John Howland Rowe and Richard Burger, has convinced most archaeologists that Machu Picchu was an estate of the Inca emperor Pachacuti.^[8] In addition, Johan Reinhard presented evidence that the site was selected because of its position relative to sacred landscape features such as its mountains which are purported to be in alignment with key astronomical events important to the Incas.

Johan Reinhard believes Machu Picchu to be a sacred religious site. This theory stands mainly because of where Machu Picchu is located. Reinhard calls it "sacred geography" because the site is built on and around mountains that hold high religious importance in the Inca culture and in the previous culture that occupied the land. At the highest point of the mountain in which Machu Picchu was named after, there are “artificial platforms [and] these had a religious function, as is clear from the Inca ritual offerings found buried under them” (Reinhard 2007). These platforms also are found in other Incan religious sites. The site’s other stone structures have finely worked stones with niches and, from what the “Spaniards wrote about Inca sites, we know that these [types of] building[s] were of ritual significance” (Reinhard 2007). This would be the most convincing evidence that Reinhard points out because this type of stylistic stonework is only found at the religious sites so it would be natural that they would exist at this religious site.^[11] Another theory maintains that Machu Picchu was an Inca llaqta, a settlement built to control the economy of conquered regions. Yet another asserts that it may have been built as a prison for a select few who had committed heinous crimes against Inca society. An alternative theory is that it is an agricultural testing station. Different types of crops could be tested in the many different micro-climates afforded by the location and the terraces; these were not large enough to grow food on a large scale, but may have been used to determine what could grow where. Another theory suggests that the city was built as an abode for the deities, or for the coronation of kings.^[12]

View of the city of Machu Picchu in 1911 showing the original ruins before modern reconstruction work began.^[3]^[4]

Although the citadel is located only about 80 kilometers (50 mi) from Cusco, the Inca capital, the Spanish never found it and consequently did not plunder or destroy it, as they did many other sites.^[8] Over the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew over much of the site, and few outsiders knew of its existence.

On 24 July 1911, Hiram Bingham announced the discovery of Machu Picchu to scholars. As an American historian employed as a lecturer at Yale University, Bingham had been searching for the city of Vilcabamba, the last Inca refuge during the Spanish conquest. He had worked for years in previous trips and explorations around the zone. Pablito Alvarez, a local 11 year-old Quechua boy, led Bingham up to Machu Picchu.^[8]^[13] Some Quechuas lived in the original structures at Machu Picchu.^{[citation needed]}