4.Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu, also spelled Machupijchu, site of ancient Inca ruins located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains. It is perched above the Urubamba River valley in a narrow saddle between two sharp peaks—Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“New Peak”)—at an elevation of 7,710 feet (2,350 metres). One of the few major pre-Columbian ruins found nearly intact, Machu Picchu was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.
Although the site escaped detection by the Spaniards, it may have been visited by the German adventurer Augusto Berns in 1867. However, Machu Picchu’s existence was not widely known in the West until it was “discovered” in 1911 by the Yale University professor Hiram Bingham, who was led to the site by Melchor Arteaga, a local Quechua-speaking resident. Bingham had been seeking Vilcabamba (Vilcapampa), the “lost city of the Incas,” from which the last Inca rulers led a rebellion against Spanish rule until 1572. He cited evidence from his 1912 excavations at Machu Picchu, which were sponsored by Yale University and the National Geographic Society, in his labeling of the site as Vilcabamba; however, that interpretation is no longer widely accepted. (Nevertheless, many sources still follow Bingham’s precedent and erroneously label Machu Picchu as the “lost city of the Incas.”) Evidence later associated Vilcabamba with another ruin, Espíritu Pampa, which was also discovered by Bingham. In 1964 Espíritu Pampa was extensively excavated under the direction of the American explorer Gene Savoy. The site was much deteriorated and overgrown with forest, but Savoy uncovered remains there of some 300 Inca houses and 50 or more other buildings, as well as extensive terraces, proving that Espíritu Pampa was a much larger settlement.
MORE KNOW ABOUT Machu Picchu IN HINDI
- दक्षिण अमरीका में एंडीज पर्वतों के बीच बसा माचू पिच्चू शहर पुरानी इंका सभ्यता का सबसे बढ़िया उदाहरण है।
- माचू पिच्चू 15वीं शताब्दी तक बसा हुआ था।
- 15वीं शताब्दी के बाद माना जाता है कि स्पेन के आक्रमणकारी यहाँ पर छोटी चेचक जैसी भयानक महामारी ले आए जिसके कारण यह शहर पूरी तरह उजड़ गया।
- जब इसे सात आश्चर्यों में गिना गया तो इस 5000 फुट ऊँचे सुदूर स्थान पर सैकड़ों लोग खुशियाँ मनाने एकत्र हुए।
- 1430 ई. के आसपास इंकाओं ने इसका निर्माण अपने शासकों के आधिकारिक स्थल के रूप में शुरू किया था, लेकिन इसके लगभग सौ साल बाद, जब इंकाओं पर स्पेनियों ने विजय प्राप्त कर ली तो इसे यूँ ही छोड़ दिया गया।
- माचू पिच्चू को 1981 में पेरू का एक ऐतिहासिक देवालय घोषित किया गया, और 1983 में इसे यूनेस्को द्वारा विश्व धरोहर स्थल की दर्ज़ा दिया गया।
Machu Picchu was further excavated in 1915 by Bingham, in 1934 by the Peruvian archaeologist Luis E. Valcarcel, and in 1940–41 by Paul Fejos. Additional discoveries throughout the Cordillera de Vilcabamba have shown that Machu Picchu was one of a series of pucaras (fortified sites), tambos (travelers’ barracks, or inns), and signal towers along the extensive Inca foot highway.
FACT OF MACHU PICCHUIt’s no stranger to earthquakes.
The stones in the most handsome buildings throughout the Inca Empire used no mortar. These stones were cut so precisely, and wedged so closely together, that a credit card cannot be inserted between them. Aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits of this building style, there are engineering advantages. Peru is a seismically unstable country—both Lima and Cusco have been leveled by earthquakes—and Machu Picchu itself was constructed atop two fault lines. When an earthquake occurs, the stones in an Inca building are said to “dance;” that is, they bounce through the tremors and then fall back into place. Without this building method, many of the best known buildings at Machu Picchu would have collapsed long ago.
Much of the most impressive stuff is invisible.
While the Inca are best remembered for their beautiful walls, their civil engineering projects were incredibly advanced as well. (Especially, as is often noted, for a culture that used no draft animals, iron tools, or wheels.) The site we see today had to be sculpted out of a notch between two small peaks by moving stone and earth to create a relatively flat space. The engineer Kenneth Wright has estimated that 60 percent of the construction done at Machu Picchu was underground. Much of that consists of deep building foundations and crushed rock used as drainage. (As anyone who’s visited in the wet season can tell you, Machu Picchu receives a lot of rain.)
You can walk up to the ruins.
A trip to Machu Picchu is many things, but cheap is not one of them. Train tickets from Cusco can run more than a hundred dollars each, and entry fees range from $47 to $62 depending on which options you choose. In between, a round-trip bus trip up and down the 2,000-feet-high slope atop which the Inca ruins are located costs another $24. If you don’t mind a workout, however, you can walk up and down for free. The steep path roughly follows Hiram Bingham’s 1911 route and offers extraordinary views of the Machu Picchu Historical Sanctuary, which looks almost as it did in Bingham’s time. The climb is strenuous and takes about 90 minutes.
There’s a great, hidden museum that no one goes to.
For visitors conditioned to the explanatory signs at national parks, one of the strangest things about Machu Picchu is that the site provides virtually no information about the ruins. (This lack does have one advantage—the ruins remain uncluttered.) The excellent Museo de Sitio Manuel Chávez Ballón ($7 entry) fills in many of the blanks about how and why Machu Picchu was built (displays are in English and Spanish), and why the Inca chose such an extraordinary natural location for the citadel. First you have to find the museum, though. It’s inconveniently tucked at the end of a long dirt road near the base of Machu Picchu, about a 30-minute walk from the town of Aguas Calientes.
There’s a secret temple.
Should you be one of the lucky early birds who snags a spot on the guest list to Huayna Picchu, don’t just climb the mountain, snap a few photos, and leave. Take the time to follow the hair-raising trail to the Temple of the Moon, located on the far side of Huayna Picchu. Here, a ceremonial shrine of sorts has been built into a cave lined with exquisite stonework and niches that were once probably used to hold mummies.
It has a great sense of direction.
From the moment Hiram Bingham staggered up to Machu Picchu in 1911, visitors have understood that the ruins’ natural setting is as important to the site as the buildings themselves. Recent research has shown that the site’s location, and the orientation of its most important structures, was strongly influenced by the location of nearby holy mountains, or apus. An arrow-shaped stone atop the peak of Huayna Picchu appears to point due south, directly through the famous Intihuatana Stone, to Mount Salcantay, one of the most revered apus in Inca cosmology. On important days of the Inca calendar, the sun can be seen to rise or set behind other significant peaks.
1.How was Machu Picchu built?
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 Room of the Three Windows.
2.Why is Machu Picchu so special?
3.In what country is Machu Picchu?
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