Machu Picchu

• 1. Introduction

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  Machu Picchu rests on a mountain crest 2430 metres above sea level, in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru. The Urubamba River bends around the ruins on three sides, and cliffs drop straight down 450 metres to the water. Morning mists rise from that river and drift across the stonework.

  The old Inca capital, Cusco, lies about 80 kilometres away and sits at 3400 metres, more than 1000 metres higher. Today the citadel draws over 1.5 million visitors a year, making it the most visited international destination in Peru.

  Yet the people who raised these walls left no written account of why. Who lived on this ridge, and where did they come from? How did builders anchor a stone town to a slope crossed by earthquake faults? And who deserves credit for finding it, and who has the right to keep what was found inside?

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• 2. A Borrowed Name

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  A 2021 study in the journal Ñawpa Pacha argues that the famous name may not belong to the ruins at all. Machu Picchu is often translated as "old mountain" or "old peak." The builders more likely called their settlement Huayna Picchu, after the smaller peak nearby. They may also have called it simply Picchu. According to the study, the modern name spread through Hiram Bingham's publications of 1911. His field notes, early maps and historical documents support that conclusion. Spaniards in the late 16th century had already recorded local people speaking of returning to "Huayna Picchu."

  Dating the place is just as contested. John H. Rowe reconstructed the reign of the ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui and placed the start of construction around 1450, ten years after that ruler took power. A 2021 study led by Richard L. Burger, an anthropologist at Yale, measured 26 radiocarbon samples from human remains. Its verdict was that people occupied the site from about 1420 to 1530. Building seems to span two rulers, Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, who reigned from 1438 to 1471, and Túpac Inca Yupanqui, who reigned from 1472 to 1493.

  Archaeologists broadly agree that Pachacutec ordered the estate after conquering the middle and lower Urubamba. It was one of several royal estates along that river. The palace complex probably served as a seasonal retreat, and it was never meant to pass down the line of succession. After about 80 years of use it was abandoned, seemingly because of the Spanish conquests elsewhere in the empire. Smallpox carried by travelers may have killed most of the residents before a single conquistador arrived.

  No contemporary written record confirms any of this, so the evidence has to come from bones, soil and stone.

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• 3. The Retainers' Estate

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  An estimated 750 people lived at Machu Picchu while the estate was in use. Most were yanaconas, support staff who stayed year-round. Religious specialists and temporary skilled workers called mayocs lived there too, most likely for the ruler's well-being and enjoyment. Winter was usually the harsher season. Staffing then dropped to a few hundred servants and a few religious specialists who only kept the place maintained.

  Skeletons reveal that most residents were newcomers from many different regions. Genome-wide analyses found Andean, coastal, Ecuadorian and Amazonian ancestries among the retainers, including former aclla. People of different backgrounds lived, raised children and were buried together. Their bones carried damage from water parasites native to different parts of Peru. Chemical traces pointed to long-term diets built on maize, potatoes, grains, legumes and fish. The final meals of these people, though, held less fish and more corn. That pattern suggests that some had come from the coast.

  The bones also tell of an easier life than most Inca subjects knew. Arthritis and fractures were rarer here than at most Inca sites. Where they did appear, they belonged to people who had done heavy labor, such as the Mit'a service, or who had served in the military.

  Animals came from far away too. Llamas and alpacas, whose bones are the most common animal remains, naturally live near 4000 metres rather than at this 2400-metre elevation. They were probably brought from the Puna region for meat and pelts. Guinea pigs turned up in special tomb caves, which points to funerary rituals. Six dogs lay among human remains, and their placement suggests they accompanied the dead.

  Excavators documented about 104 caves and rock shelters used as burial chambers, holding roughly 174 individuals. These were largely yanaconas of varied ethnic origins, not Inca elite. In Inca religion, the capacocha ritual involved carefully selected, unblemished children, offered at major shrines on exceptional occasions. Machu Picchu offers little direct evidence of human sacrifice. Animal offerings, especially of camelids, were common. The Temple of the Condor and its nearby caves are interpreted as places of ritual sacrifice.

  Feeding that community was another matter, because the mountain's own farmland could not do it.

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• 4. Terraces and Fractured Stone

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  Rain of more than 1800 millimetres a year has fallen around the site since 1450, by one estimate. That is more than crops need, so the engineers designed their terraces to shed water rather than to collect it. Kenneth Wright's excavations in the 1990s found layers: large stones at the bottom, then loose gravel, then packed sand and gravel, then rich topsoil. The topsoil was probably hauled up from the valley floor, because it was far better than the soil on the mountain. Landslides struck even during construction, and some terraces still show where they shifted before the Inca stabilized them and kept building.

  All that terracing covers about 4.9 hectares, roughly 12 acres. Soil studies showed it grew mostly corn and potatoes, which could not have fed 750 people. Maize was probably the main crop thanks to its ceremonial importance. The food residents ate was largely imported from surrounding valleys and from farther afield.

  The geologist Rualdo Menegat sums up the builders' secret in one line. Machu Picchu shows "an empire of fractured rocks." The site sits over two fault lines, and the constant seismic movement made mortar nearly useless. Research in 2019 suggested the faults were not a coincidence, since they supplied large amounts of already fractured stone. The Inca also cut stone from quarries on the site itself. One was identified in 2023 by remote sensing. It probably lay in the low ground between the lower and upper towns, before it was covered to form the Main Square.

  Inca masons shaped the granite blocks and fitted them together without mortar. Doors and windows are trapezoids that narrow toward the top. Corners are usually rounded, and inside corners often tilt slightly into the rooms. Outside corners were frequently tied together with L-shaped blocks. Each row of stones is offset slightly from the one below, instead of rising in a straight line.

  How the enormous stones were moved remains uncertain. It probably took hundreds of men pushing them up inclines. A few blocks still bear knobs that could have helped lever them into place. Most knobs were sanded away, but a few were overlooked. For larger blocks the Inca likely used gently sloped ramps, wooden rollers, levers and ropes of maguey fiber. Most stone moved downhill, though the blocks at Ollantaytambo travelled long distances.

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• 5. Sun, Stone and Sky

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  Roughly 200 buildings crowd the wide parallel terraces around an east-west central square. The site divides into an agricultural sector to the southeast and an urban sector to the northeast. The urban sector splits again into an upper town called Hanan and a lower town called Hurin. The long, narrow compounds known as kanchas were shaped to fit the terrain. Stone stairways set in the walls link the levels. The eastern part was probably residential, while the western part across the square was religious and ceremonial. The Popular District, home to lower-class residents, held storage buildings and simple houses. The Guardian's house has three sides, in the style called wayrona.

  The Intihuatana, a ritual stone on a terraced hill, has a name that likely came from Bingham, who compared it to a monument at Pisac. In Quechua it means "place where the sun is tied." Scholars reject the popular idea that it was a solar calendar. On the 11th of November and the 30th of January the Sun stands almost directly above the pillar at midday, so it casts no shadow. On the 21st of June the longest shadow falls on its southern side. On the 21st of December a much shorter one falls on the northern side. The stone also lines up with sacred peaks including Veronica, Salcantay and Huayna Picchu.

  The Torreón, also called the Temple of the Sun, is a semicircular two-part tower built among huge granite boulders. It sits above the rock that Bingham labelled the "Royal Mausoleum." A trapezoidal opening called the Serpent's Door leads to a small platform. From there, visitors overlook a series of pools, with a view of Huayna Picchu. The top rock is carved with steps and a Z-shaped edge often read as an altar. Its openings throw distinctive patterns of sunlight and frame limited views of star groups such as the Pleiades. Detailed 3D analyses, however, show it was no precise astronomical instrument. Its solar alignments served ritual purposes.

  On the eastern side of the site, the cave of Inti Mach'ay marked the Royal Feast of the Sun. The Inca held that festival in the month of Qhapaq Raymi, and it ended on the December solstice. On that morning, noble boys stood inside the cave, watched the sunrise and were initiated into manhood with an ear-piercing ritual. A tunnel-like window, unique among Inca structures, lets sunlight into the interior only for a few days around the solstice. Many caves nearby were tombs, but there is no evidence that this one was.

  The Temple of the Three Windows stands on the Sacred Plaza, a terrace measuring 16 metres by 16 metres. Its single trapezoidal wall is built of large, finely worked white granite blocks. Their joints show helical planes found nowhere else in the site's masonry. Three oversized openings have lintels and jambs carved from single stones. The temple was probably once roofed with a timber truss.

  On the central window, someone had written a name in charcoal years before the outside world arrived.

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• 6. Who Found It First

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  Charcoal letters on that central window read "A. Lizárraga 1902." The Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga led an expedition to the area that year. After hours of clearing undergrowth, his party reached the stone buildings. The graffiti appears in Bingham's early photographs, published in The Geographical Journal in December 1911 and National Geographic Magazine in April 1912.

  Other traces came before. Maps mention Machu Picchu as early as 1874, and an atlas of 1904 labelled it Huayna Picchu. The German engineer Augusto Berns may have found and exploited the site in the late 19th century. Some suggest another German engineer, J. M. von Hassel, arrived earlier, but no solid evidence exists. The conquistador Baltasar de Ocampo left notes from the end of the 16th century describing a mountain fortress called Pitcos. He praised its majestic buildings and the carved marble lintels of every doorway.

  Hiram Bingham was a Yale lecturer, though not a trained archaeologist. In 1909 he returned from the Pan-American Scientific Congress in Santiago and crossed Peru. There he was invited to explore the Inca ruins at Choqquequirau. He then organized the 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition, partly to find the lost capital of the Neo-Inca state. He expected it to be Vitcos, near the town of Torontoy. The historian Carlos Romero in Lima pointed him to Father Antonio de la Calancha's chronicle of 1631. That source suggested Vitcos lay "near a great white rock over a spring of fresh water." In Cusco, one old prospector mentioned interesting ruins at Machu Picchu. Local leaders gave the claim no importance. Charles Wiener, Bingham later learned, had also heard of the ruins but never reached them.

  At Mandor Pampa, the farmer and innkeeper Melchor Arteaga told Bingham of excellent ruins on Huayna Picchu. The next day, the 24th of July, Arteaga led Bingham and Sergeant Carrasco across the river on a log bridge and up the mountain. Near the top stood a small hut occupied by two Quechua farmers, Richarte and Alvarez. They had cleared some of the old terraces four years before. Richarte's 11-year-old son, Pablito, guided Bingham along the ridge to the main ruins. Vegetation hid most of the site, but Bingham took notes, measurements and photographs and admired the stonework. He could not tell what the place had been, only that it did not match Vitcos.

  Then he saw the charcoal on the temple wall. Disappointed, he wrote in his pocket field journal: "Agustín Lizárraga is discoverer of Machu Picchu and lives at San Miguel Bridge just before passing." His early writings and speeches, including Inca Land in 1922, acknowledged Lizárraga. Over time the credit faded. By his final telling, Lost City of the Incas in 1952, Bingham claimed to have found the site himself. In 1922 he wrote to the head of the school he once attended in Honolulu. His words were: "I suppose that in the same sense of the word as it is used in the expression 'Columbus discovered America' it is fair to say that I discovered Machu Picchu." Bingham was not the first visitor. He was, however, the scientific discoverer who brought the place to the world's attention.

  The city he had actually set out to find turned up elsewhere. Bingham named the jungle ruins at Espíritu Pampa "Trombone Pampa." In 1964, Gene Savoy explored them and identified them as Vilcabamba Viejo. The Incas fled there after the Spanish drove them from Vitcos.

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• 7. The Yale Collection

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  Between July and November 1912, Bingham's second expedition cleared and mapped Machu Picchu under the supervision of George Eaton and Ellwood Erdis. Yale University and the National Geographic Society sponsored the work. Crews burned and removed vegetation and dug excavations, with local labor organized partly by Ángel Lizárraga, the younger brother of Agustín. The Prefect of Cusco gave logistical support. Digging resumed in 1914 and 1915. Bingham proposed several theories about the site's purpose, and later research has substantiated none of them. Among the objects shipped to Yale were ceremonial knives of bismuth bronze from the 15th century, the earliest known artifacts containing that alloy.

  Local welcome soured quickly. Institutions accused Bingham of legal and cultural malpractice, and rumors spread that his team was smuggling artifacts out through Bolivia. In fact, he removed objects openly and legally, depositing them in the Yale University Museum. Peru's Civil Code of 1852 held that archaeological finds generally belonged to the discoverer, unless found on private land. Newspapers still claimed the digging damaged the site and robbed Peruvians of their own history. Landowners began demanding rent, and locals formed coalitions to defend their claim to Machu Picchu.

  Bingham took thousands of items in 1912-1914 and 1915, including ceramic vessels, silver statues, jewelry and human bones. They were supposed to stay at Yale for 18 months. Yale kept them until 2012, arguing that Peru lacked the infrastructure to care for them. Eliane Karp, an anthropologist and the wife of former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, accused Yale of profiting from Peru's heritage. Many pieces were displayed at the Peabody Museum.

  In 2006, Yale returned some pieces but kept more than 250 "museum-quality" ones, citing federal case law on Peruvian antiquities. In 2007 the university and the Peruvian government agreed on a joint traveling exhibition and a new museum and research center in Cusco. Yale acknowledged Peru's title to every object. In November 2010 it agreed to return the disputed artifacts, and the third and final batch arrived in November 2012. They are now on permanent display at the Machu Picchu Museum, Casa Concha, near Cusco's colonial center.

  Research continued long after Bingham. State and institutional projects carried out restoration and limited excavation between 1929 and 1971. From 2014 to 2017, a program known as PIAISHM ran systematic excavations, pollen studies and architectural analyses. These clarified construction phases and recorded offerings. In 2005 and 2009, the University of Arkansas laser-scanned the entire site and the ruins atop Huayna Picchu. That data is available online to researchers.

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• 8. Crowds at the Citadel

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  In 1981 Peru declared 325.92 square kilometres around the ruins a Historic Sanctuary. UNESCO followed in 1983, calling the site "a masterpiece of art, urbanism, architecture and engineering." The sanctuary shelters the Andean fox, puma, vizcacha, spectacled bear and white-tailed deer. More than 420 bird species live there, including the cock-of-the-rock and the Andean condor, along with over 550 tree species in 74 families.

  Commercial pressure arrived early. In the late 1990s the government granted concessions for a cable car, a luxury hotel and a tourist complex with a bridge. Protesters objected that no proper environmental survey had been done. The National Institute of Natural Resources had warned of harm to the ecosystem. In the 1980s a rock from the central plaza was moved to make a helicopter landing zone, a practice later stopped. In 2006 the company Helicusco sought approval for tourist flights, but its license was soon rescinded. Plans for a cable car restarted in 2018, aimed at encouraging Peruvians to visit. UNESCO considered adding the site to its List of World Heritage in Danger in 2017 because of overcrowding, then decided against it.

  A limit of 2,500 visitors a day took effect in July 2011. A new entrance system followed in 2018. In 2024 the daily cap rose to 4,500, with up to 5,600 allowed in peak season. In May 2012, UNESCO urged stronger protection for the buffer zone as the nearby town of Aguas Calientes grew rapidly. Deaths from altitude sickness, floods and accidents have drawn criticism. A trend of nude tourism in 2014 brought tighter surveillance. Fernando Astete, who led the National Archaeological Park from 1994 to 2019, received the "Personalidad Meritoria de la Cultura" award in January 2020.

  Nature and politics have repeatedly shut the gates. In January 2010, El Niño floods trapped over 4,000 people, and the site reopened on the 1st of April 2010. The COVID-19 pandemic closed it in March 2020. In October 2020 it opened briefly for a single stranded Japanese tourist. It reopened fully in November after eight months, admitting just 675 visitors a day. During the 2022-2023 protests, blocked routes trapped thousands of tourists, and the government airlifted them out. The Ministry of Culture closed the site indefinitely on the 22nd of January 2023 and reopened it on the 15th of February 2023.

  Most visitors take a train from Cusco or Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, then a bus of 8.6 kilometres or a walk. The Inca Trail, called "the most famous hike in South America" by Lonely Planet, spans up to about 42.5 kilometres. It peaks at 4200 metres at Warmi Wañusqa before arriving at the Sun Gate, and permits are limited. A new road of 28.41 kilometres, under construction in November 2024 and due in 2025, would cut the journey from 4 or 5 hours to 2.

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