Machu Picchu- The Lost City Of The Incas
Posted On November 20, 2009
Machu Picchu which is commonly known as the old peak is located at 2,430 meters above the sea level in the Urubamba Valley of Peru. It is a pre-colonial site what you can see today is the ruins of the site, which was rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham and is declared as the UNESCO World Heritage Site in the year 1983 and also a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in the year 1981, making the site an important tourists destination. Macchu Picchu is one of the most common symbol of the Inca Empire and is commonly stated as the “The Lost City of the Incas”
The construction of the Incas was started in AD 1430 but was not in use for nearly hundred years before it did served as the as the city’s capital during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Built in traditional Inca style, Machu Picchu was built with highly polished dry-stone walls. The most important constructions of the sacred district of Machu Picchu are The Temple of the sun, Intihuatana and Room of the three windows.
The central Citadel of the astonishing city of Incas, was built in the orthodox Inca architecture which principally has dry-stone walls of standard contour. The Incas were amazing stone masons, they cut stone blocks to amazing perfection that the walls stood the wrath of time and at some locations they still exist. These walls had such good fit of the stone blocks that not even mortar was required; one could not even pass a blade of grass between them.
Constructed with the mortar some of the Inca buildings are supposed to be quick and poor quality architecture. Mortar was thus not use to construct the important buildings. Peru was a seismic land and thus is more prone to the earthquakes thus in such a location a construction made without the use of mortar is safer then that which are made using the mortar. The walls of the buildings are made up of dry-stone thus when a earthquake takes place the stones of the walls slightly move but later come back to its original place, due to which the wall does not collapse.
The various designs made on the wall also help the wall to stand still and avoid collapsing during the earthquake. The shape of the windows and doors was mostly quadrilateral with round corners. Also they are little inward tilted. Often to tie the outside of the building together L-shaped blocks were used. The building are not constructed from bottom to top but are made from one row to the next.
The Incas were well known to the use of the wheel this can be easily understood by having a look at their toys, but the Incas particularly avoided using the wheels. The Incan didn’t have those tough animals which could pull the wheels. Even today it is a mystery how they did transport the huge stones from one place to another. It is generally believed that hundred of people used to come together to displace the stones. You can find few of the stones with knobs which were used to move them.
The city consists of nearly 140 buildings which including temple, parks, residential areas that had houses with thatched roofs. The city also had sanctuaries in it. You many also find a number of water fountains in the city which was interconnected by the various channels. It was found that the irrigation was used to provide every house with water from the holy spring.
