14 November 2021
Machu Picchu: Diverse Perspectives
Yet they look so new - their condition certainly belies their almost 600 year age. Close up the walls of the houses and temples look as if they could have been made just a short time ago, not circa 1450. Why are they so pristine? Although archaeologists have rebuilt many of them, the stone buildings of Machu Picchu were only inhabited for around a century. Why were they abandoned so (comparatively) quickly after their construction.
Hands up if you thought that will be because of the Spanish conquest. Yet there is no written record that the invaders even visited the city. Neither are there the tell-tale signs of conquistador presence: they defaced most of the sacred rocks they came across with sixteenth century graffiti. Machu Picchu was, nevertheless, deserted by 1572.
It is thought that smallpox, which had been introduced by the conquistadors, made it to Machu Picchu before they did and that it decimated the population. By the time the Spanish arrived in the area the place was already abandoned by its builders. They never found it and the jungle encroached on the site rapidly, covering it. Yet it may have been ‘forgotten’ for another reason. It was never really a city, it was an estate.
It was built (it is thought) for the ninth Sapa Inca (Great Inca) Pachacuti. It functioned as an estate, a kind of retreat for him. If you think Hitler and Berchtesgaden, which the twentieth century dictator used as a residence in which he could take stock and plan his next moves, you get the idea. It is also claimed to be in alignment with important cosmological events significant to the Incas.
Many other theories, of course, abound. Yet the city was not – as many believe – completely abandoned. Although explorer and treasure hunter Hiram Bingham announced its discovery to an amazed world in 1911, the truth was it was inhabited. A number of local Quechua people lived in the ruins and Bingham was led by a boy from the tribe to the site. Bingham’s habit of secreting objects out of the country did not endear him to the Peruvian authorities.
The marvelous terraces which surround the buildings supplied the estate with food – it is even thought that one of their purposes would be to grow test crops in micro-climate to see where they might thrive in the Inca Empire. They also reduced soil erosion and the risk of landslides and helped to ensure that the buildings survived the centuries.
Yet they had another purpose too – they made the slopes surrounding the buildings of the estate much steeper than they would otherwise have been: any invader would have found it incredibly difficult to use them as a route by which to gain access to the citadel.
We often see Machu Picchu from one particular perspective. When you see if from others, it changes the experience.Notice the trail, snaking its way towards the estate (which is not as flat as some pictures show us, after all).
Then, zoom in to the trail, winding its way up the side of the mountain. One begins to grasp (on a new level) the enormity of the place and the scale of the work which took place here.
We so often look at Machu Picchu – and fair enough, there is enough to gaze at for any length of time. We look at and towards. Yet what did the Inca see as they woke up in the morning? Their first sight would be outward, beyond the estate. I would like to imagine that the first thing they did would be look out of the window – and give thanks for living in such an astonishingly beautiful place.
First Image Credit Flickr User DBMerino
