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Machu Picchu

ramonmercado

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Man Gets 6 Years for Machu Picchu Damage

Man Gets 6 Years for Machu Picchu Damage
By CARLA SALAZAR, Associated Press Writer
Fri Nov 11, 9:59 PM ET



A camera crane operator shooting a commercial at the Machu Picchu Inca ruins whose equipment tipped and chipped a stone sundial there has been sentenced to six years in prison, officials said Friday.

The local court in Urubamba, 338 miles southeast of the capital, Lima, said it had found Walter Leonidas Espinoza guilty on Nov. 3 of destruction and alteration of cultural goods.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of eight years behind bars. Antonio Terrazas, a lawyer acting as spokesman for Peru's Institute of Culture, said offenders are seldom charged and when they are prosecuted and found guilty, it normally results only in a fine or a few months in jail.

Espinoza has appealed his sentence, authorities said.

The production company Espinoza worked for knocked a corner edge off the Intihuatana, or "hitching post for the sun," in 2000 while shooting the commercial for the Backus beer company.

The Intihuatana was used by Inca astronomers to predict solstices and was of great importance in Inca mythology and agriculture. It is considered to be the most important shrine in Machu Picchu, Peru's biggest tourist attraction, high in the jungle-covered Andes, about 310 miles southeast of the capital, Lima.

Officials with Backus, which faces a civil lawsuiti along with the advertising firm that hired the production company, declined comment Friday.

Peru
 
Peru and Yale locked in dispute over Inca treasure

Peru is demanding the return of treasures from the Incan site of Machu Picchu which are being held permanently at Yale University. The ancient Incan city, located in the Andes mountains, was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 and many artefacts were subsequently sent to Yale with the agreement of Peru’s government between 1912 and 1916. Today’s Peruvian authorities state the items were loaned and should be returned. Yale, although agreeing to return some of the artefacts, believes it has full title to the remainder. Peru believes there are 5,000 items whereas Yale stated it had only around 250 ‘exhibitable’ pieces. (February 3rd)

Machu
 
Bridge stirs the waters in Machu Picchu
By Dan Collyns
BBC News, Peru


In the year that Peru is trying to get Machu Picchu voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, there are growing tensions over the country's greatest tourist attraction.


Machu Picchu is located high in the Andes Mountains


Enlarge Image

A former mayor has built a bridge which creates a new route to the World Heritage site, threatening to bring more tourists and, some say, open up a new route for drug traffickers.

The 80-metre long Carilluchayoc bridge, which crosses the Vilcanota river near the base of the 15th-Century Inca citadel, is to be inaugurated in February, despite a court order prohibiting its construction and protests from the government and environmentalists.

There is concern that - with around 2,500 visitors a day - there are already too many tourists tramping around the ruins. The UN's cultural division, Unesco, is due to inspect the site this year to decide whether it should be classed as an endangered heritage site.

But the former mayor of La Convencion province, Fedia Castro, whose term ended recently, says the village of Santa Teresa needs the bridge to end its isolation and bring commerce and tourism.

The villagers currently have to undertake a 15-hour journey along treacherous roads to take their agricultural produce to market in the regional capital, Cusco. The bridge will allow them to take it by lorry in just three hours.

'Profit-orientated'

The bridge has strong support in La Convencion province and across the region from people who believe the inhabitants of Santa Teresa should be able to benefit from Cusco region's booming tourism industry.

The companies... are thinking of profit. My task is to give to the next generation the opportunity to continue seeing this wonder for the centuries to come

David Ugarte
Cusco National Cultural Institute
But there are others who have voiced concern, particularly those charged with protecting Peru's archaeological and cultural heritage.

The director of Cusco's National Cultural Institute, David Ugarte, says he is not opposed to the bridge in principle but he is worried about the potential increase in tourism.

"We don't deny that they need a proper road for this area, but the mayor's slogan that it's 'the bridge or death' lacks credibility and seriousness," he says.

Mr Ugarte says the site was not designed for the number of tourists who now visit it and could not sustain more.

"The companies... are thinking of profit. My task is to give to the next generation the opportunity to continue seeing this wonder for the centuries to come," he says.

"The tourism companies take around 2,500 people up there every day. They want to take 5,000 a day or more. If that happens, in 10 years' time there will be no longer be a Machu Picchu. It's not only part of our heritage, it's part of humanity's."

'Proper management'

There is currently only one route to Machu Picchu from the city of Cusco and that is by train. PeruRail, which is owned by the British company Orient Express Hotels has had a monopoly on transport through the Sacred Valley since 1999. Tourists can pay between $70 (£35) and $450 for a return trip.


The bridge is due to be completed in February
But when the Carilluchayoc bridge is completed, backpackers will be able to take a $4 bus ride to the foot of the site using a different route.

Patricio Zucconi, who manages the Orient Express-run Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge Hotel, says with proper management the site could sustain many more tourists.

He says the Inca ruins simply need more than one entrance and exit point and he estimates as many as 4,000 visitors could come and go every day.

"The problem is the way Machu Picchu is managed. There are too many state bodies in charge of it," he says.

Mr Zucconi warns without proper controls on the bridge, the flora and fauna in the national park which surrounds the ruins will suffer because of the increased number of tours.

But Orient Express Hotels has angered some local leaders.

"They just take all the money out of the region," says the newly-elected Regional President of Cusco, Hugo Gonzales.

"The constitution of Peru prohibits monopolies. PeruRail has a monopoly because 92% of the tourists who visit Machu Picchu go by the railway."

Mr Gonzales says he fully supports the building of the bridge but the company has opposed it because it wants to hold on to its monopoly on the rail route.

More visitors

The problem dates back to 1998 when the old village of Santa Teresa, located near the railway, was destroyed in a landslide. The villagers were forced to relocate when the government refused to rebuild it.


Despite its opposition to the bridge, the government has done nothing to prevent its building.

Officials have said the bridge will provide a new route for cocaine traffickers in La Convencion province, which is under a state of emergency because of its coca production.

Mr Gonzales acknowledges there may be a drug-trafficking problem but says without the bridge the villagers are forced to carry their produce by foot for miles.

"It's not acceptable that there are big profits for the owners of the railway line and hotels, yet five minutes from Cusco we have extreme poverty," he said.

A spokeswoman for Orient Express Hotels, Yasmine Martin, says her company rescued the site from mismanagement by the regional authorities and provides community projects, employment and rubbish collection.

"We provide a subsidised train service for the local people twice a day at the cost of $800,000 a year," she says. " Show me the company which offers even $10,000 year for the local population"

With the imminent opening of the bridge there is every indication that 2007 will bring more visitors to Machu Picchu.

As the various companies and state bodies struggle for dominion over this once-lost city, it seems that ultimately no-one wants to kill the goose which lays the golden egg.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6292327.stm
 
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Machu Picchu ruin 'found earlier'
By Dan Collyns
BBC News, Lima

A team of historians says the lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, in Peru was discovered more than 40 years earlier than previously thought and ransacked.

Machu Picchu, now Peru's biggest tourist attraction, was famously believed to have been discovered in 1911 by US explorer Hiram Bingham.

The ruins are the crown jewel of Peru's archaeological sites in Peru and draw thousands of tourists every day.

Machu Pichu carries symbolic value for Peru's indigenous people.

It was built by one of the last Inca emperors, Pachacutec, in around 1450 and kept secret from the Spanish conquerors who invaded about 100 years later.

Now the story about its discovery by the western world has been shaken up by a team of historians who say a German businessman looted its treasures more than 40 years before.

They say the adventurer, Augusto Berns, who traded in Peru's wood and gold, raided the citadel's tombs in 1867 apparently with the blessing of the Peruvian government.

He had set up a sawmill at the foot of the forested mountain on which Machu Picchu stands and systematically robbed precious artefacts which he sold to European galleries and museums.

Only when one of the historians found a map in Peru's national museum were his activities traced.

Until now it has been believed that Hiram Bingham, an American academic from Yale University, brought the Inca city to the attention of the world in 1911, although local people clearly already knew of its presence.

Mr Berns had a far less noble objective and researchers are now trying to find out how many artefacts he spirited out of the country at a time when there were no known archaeological expeditions in Peru.

Sadly more than a century later, Peruvian archaeological treasures are still being looted by grave robbers and sold on the international black market.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7439397.stm
 
Rare Mass Tombs Discovered Near Machu Picchu
José Orozco in Caracas, Venezuela
for National Geographic News

September 15, 2008

Eighty skeletons and stockpiles of textiles found in caves near the ancient Inca site of Machu Picchu may shed light on the role that the so-called lost city of the Inca played as a regional center of trade and power, scientists say.

Researchers found the artifacts and remains at two sites within the Machu Picchu Archaeological Park in southeastern Peru, said Fernando Astete, head of the park (see map of Peru).

The remains, most of which were found in May 2008 at a site called Salapunku, probably date to 500 to 550 years ago, said Francisco Huarcaya, the site's lead researcher.

Due to extensive looting, however, as much as 75 percent of the fabrics found wrapped around the remains are in "bad shape," Huarcaya said.

So far only the heads and shoulders of most of the bodies have been uncovered, Astete added.

"The head and shoulder bones are seen first, because the Inca buried their dead [sitting] in the fetal position," he explained.

Formal excavations will soon begin at both sites. Huarcaya plans to exhume the remains of five people at Salapunku later this month.

Tombs and Textiles

The modest funerary wrappings, made of vegetable fiber, and the simple grave objects, including unadorned ceramics, suggest that the dead unearthed at Salapunku were peasant farmers, Huarcaya said. Weavers have been found accompanied by their weaving baskets, balls of thread, looms, and textiles, according to Guillermo Cock, an expert on Andean cultures.

Cock has received funding from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Textiles found at the second site, called Qhanabamba, discovered in August 2008, may also provide clues to the social rank of the dead.

Peasants were more likely to have been buried with textiles made from llama wool, while wool of the vicuña—a relative of the llama—was reserved for nobility, said Astete, the park's director.

Human remains are rare near Machu Picchu, and the wet mountain climate makes textiles uncommon finds, said Cock, who was not part of the research team.

"Finding organic material in the mountains is significant because it's so scarce," he said. "The humidity from rain decomposes individuals and textiles."

Analysis of the bones should also reveal age at death, sex, cause of death, diet, and perhaps even the dead's occupations, Astete added.

"We should be able to tell whether these people carried large burdens to help construct terraces, for example. Their bones will be bent, not straight. They will have deformities," he explained.

"Bones will also tell us about their diets and diseases. A fracture would reveal an accident."

The burial of human remains held special significance for the Inca, added Huarcaya, the lead researcher.

"The remains in tombs are like the guardians of the population in Andean ideology," he said. "For [ancient Andeans], death does not exist."

Machu Picchu Revealed

Built around 1460, the city of Machu Picchu seems to have been abandoned after the Spanish conquest in the 1500s, though it was never found by the conquerors.

Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham brought Machu Picchu to worldwide attention after local Indians led him to the site in 1911. (See Bingham's original photos of Machu Picchu from his expedition.)

The new discoveries promise to shed light on the mystery of the ancient city and its role within the Inca Empire, Cock said.

"We know Machu Picchu, but we don't know its surrounding areas," he said.

"I think new material will be found that will help us understand the Inca's relationship with the region."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... 77108.html
 
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Inca Elite Imported Diverse "Staff" to Run Machu Picchu

José Orozco
for National Geographic News

October 27, 2008

Inca nobility at Machu Picchu relied on special, permanent servants from the far corners of the empire to manage the royal estate, according to a new study of human skeletons found buried at the site.

Machu Picchu sits high in the Peruvian Andes about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of the former Inca capital of Cusco (see map).

Royal retainers, known as yanacona, may have been brought to the site from as far away as South America's Pacific Coast, the northern highlands, and the area around Lake Titicaca near Peru's border with Bolivia, the study says.

Determining the geographic origins of yanacona may help researchers better understand how the Inca practice of paying tributes with labor helped shape the empire's social classes.

For some people this work was temporary, but for yanacona it meant leaving home and family behind forever, noted lead study author Bethany Turner, an anthropologist at Georgia State University.

Yanacona candidates probably had little room for negotiation, Turner added.

"It was not necessarily forced, but you wouldn't turn it down lightly," she said.

Bustling City

The Inca Empire lasted from roughly 1430 to 1532, when the Spanish reached Peru, Turner said.

The empire stretched from present-day southern Colombia to what is now central Chile, and the Inca largely allowed their subjects to maintain their languages and cultural traditions.

Many scientists believe the city of Machu Picchu, which was occupied starting around 1450, was built on orders from Inca ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui to serve as a government palace and administrative center.

While nobility were not permanent residents at the estate, visitors would probably have seen a city buzzing with the activity of yanacona, Turner said.

Guillermo Cock, an Andean expert based in Lima who was not involved in the new study, said that taking yanacona from diverse regions probably helped Inca rulers break ties of allegiance between villagers and their local authorities.

"The greater the distance, the greater the rupture between the yanacona and their lords and the greater their dependence on their Inca authority," Cock said.

But evidence suggests the yanacona were treated with honor and privileges to help soften the blow and create new loyalties, he said.

For example, the retainers were given gifts such as textiles and agricultural lands, and their bones showed no signs of hard physical labor.

The servants likely performed agricultural work, administrative jobs, served in defense, and generally maintained the site, study author Turner said.

Machu Picchu seems to have been abandoned after the Spanish conquest, and it was apparently ignored by the invaders. Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham brought Machu Picchu to worldwide attention after local Indians led him to the site in 1911.

During the initial excavations of the site in 1912 and 1913, archaeologists found three cemeteries containing 177 bodies.

Later analysis of the graves and objects found with the bodies suggests the people buried there were not elite, leading experts to theorize that they were yanacona.

(Related: "Rare Mass Tombs Discovered Near Machu Picchu" [September 15, 2008].)

For the new study, Turner and colleagues looked at ratios of oxygen, strontium, and lead isotopes in the teeth of 74 individuals from those graves.

The team looked for the isotopes in tooth layers that develop when a person is three to four years old.

Comparing those results with analyses of food and water sources near Machu Picchu helped determine whether the people were native to the area or were likely immigrants.

The analysis shows "widely different backgrounds in where [the people] lived and what their diets were," Turner said, although she cautions that her team's study is just an initial attempt at uncovering the yanacona's origins.

She and colleagues will publish their work in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Efficient Labor

Cock, the Andean expert, said that as permanent servants, yanacona were extremely useful to the Inca Empire.

If the Inca needed a labor force, they could just pick from the yanacona instead of requesting new temporary workers from communities under their power.

"The yanacona … gave them direct access to labor, making it a much more efficient system," Cock said.

In fact, the state's success owed a great deal to the yanacona, said Fernando Astete, director of the Machu Picchu Archaeological Park.

"Without the work of yanacona, the Inca state would never have developed," Astete said. "Their work was the foundation of Inca productivity."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/838305.html
 
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Machu Picchu reveals new secrets: Inkaraqay


October 3, 2010

Only ever seen by a few people over the past century, the Inca site of Inkaraqay located on an inaccessible and nearly vertical side of the Huayna Picchu mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu, is only now being revealed to the wider world.

With the appearance of a fort hanging on to the sheer drop that gives way to the Vilcanota river and the well-known moon temple below, its huge walls and terraces covering 4,500 square metres are actually agricultural in nature.


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Machu Picchu reveals new secrets: Inkaraqay

October 3, 2010

Only ever seen by a few people over the past century, the Inca site of Inkaraqay located on an inaccessible and nearly vertical side of the Huayna Picchu mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu, is only now being revealed to the wider world.


With the appearance of a fort hanging on to the sheer drop that gives way to the Vilcanota river and the well-known moon temple below, its huge walls and terraces covering 4,500 square metres are actually agricultural in nature.

Accompanying the five levels of farming terraces is a ritual platform dedicated, as with the temple nearer the mountain’s foot, to the worship of the moon.

“The architecture of these terraces is superior to even those of Machu Picchu itself,” says Piedad Champi, resident archaeologist. Specially designed water channels appear and disappear from terrace to terrace, bringing running water to every area without fail.

“This was one of the sectors that provided food that they ate in Machu Picchu. It’s connected through a series of stairs that go to the Moon Temple and then around Huayna Picchu“, explains Champi, himself of the opinion that Machu Picchu was a retreat for emperor Pachacútec.

More and plenty of pictures:

http://enperublog.com/2010/10/03/machu- ... inkaraqay/
 
Ownership row grinds on as Machu Picchu celebrates

TOM HENNIGAN in São Paulo
Sat, Jul 23, 2011

A CENTURY after its existence was revealed to the world, Machu Picchu remains at the centre of a long-running legal dispute between a local family and Peru’s government over who owns the iconic lost city of the Incas.

Sunday is the centenary of the discovery of the site by US explorer Hiram Bingham, and Peru is mounting a series of national celebrations to mark the event, with President Alan García leading commemorations at the ruins which have come to symbolise the Andean nation.

But two families from the nearby city of Cuzco claim they have documents showing they are the legitimate owners of Machu Picchu, which attracts over 800,000 visitors a year.

The Zavaleta and Abrill families are both descended from Mariano Ferro, the landlord who owned the land where Bingham discovered the ruins. They have fought a long battle through Peru’s courts and even brought their case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a so-far futile bid to have their rights recognised.

They are demanding millions of euro in compensation for what they say is the “expropriation” of their patrimony, and also want a share of the income the government earns from charging tourists for entry to the site.

The government dismisses their claim. Peruvian law makes all significant archaeological sites property of the nation. In 1944 the state expropriated Machu Picchu – a 15th century citadel which archaeologists now believe was built by the Incan emperor Pachacutec.

It was declared a national historical sanctuary in 1981 and a Unesco world heritage site in 1983.

As well as the dispute over ownership there is also a debate in Peru about whether Sunday’s anniversary should be celebrated at all.

Many resent the notion that it is Yale professor Bingham who is widely acknowledged as Machu Picchu’s discoverer. Eliane Karp, the country’s former first lady, has criticised the “grandiloquent” official celebrations to mark the centenary of what she refers to as “a myth called the Discovery of Machu Picchu”.

“[Bingham] did not discover it, he was brought there by Peruvian scientists and peasants, who were always in this region and knew of its existence,” wrote the French-born anthropologist in Lima’s La Republica newspaper. “In the collective memory of the local indigenous people, Machu Picchu and its stories never stopped existing.”

Peru’s minister of culture last week tried to defuse the controversy, telling local television the centenary marked a “shared discovery” between Peruvians and Bingham.

“On one hand are the Peruvians who knew about it and gave help to the foreigner, who then divulged it at the international level,” said Juan Ossio.

The government is keen to capitalise on the anniversary as a means of promoting the country’s tourist industry – the economy’s third largest, after mining and fishing.

Meanwhile, indigenous rights group Survival International has criticised Peru’s government for planning to grant energy companies access to lands in the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti reservation, which lies just 100km from Machu Picchu. It says the move would pose “an extreme risk” to the lives of several uncontacted Indian tribes known to live in the area.

“It appears that double standards are at play,” said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International. “When it suits the government to exploit its indigenous peoples, it celebrates them; when it finds a way of profiting from their lands, it draws up plans that could lead to their extinction.”

In 2009, authorities in the reserve stumbled across a previously unknown nomadic tribe when checking for illegal loggers. Survival International estimates the group is one of up to 15 uncontacted groups living in the region.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wor ... 03085.html
 
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I found this very interesting ... A Brazilian geologist has concluded Machu Picchu - along with other major Incan settlements - were deliberately located where geologic faults met and / or intersected. In the case of Machu Picchu, this positioning and the fractured rocks were claimed to have facilitated the site's construction and long-term viability.
Machu Picchu: Ancient Incan sanctuary intentionally built on faults

The ancient Incan sanctuary of Machu Picchu is considered one of humanity's greatest architectural achievements. Built in a remote Andean setting atop a narrow ridge high above a precipitous river canyon, the site is renowned for its perfect integration with the spectacular landscape. But the sanctuary's location has long puzzled scientists: Why did the Incas build their masterpiece in such an inaccessible place? Research suggests the answer may be related to the geological faults that lie beneath the site.

On Monday, 23 Sept. 2019, at the GSA Annual meeting in Phoenix, Rualdo Menegat, a geologist at Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, will present the results of a detailed geoarchaeological analysis that suggests the Incas intentionally built Machu Picchu -- as well as some of their cities -- in locations where tectonic faults meet. "Machu Pichu's location is not a coincidence," says Menegat. "It would be impossible to build such a site in the high mountains if the substrate was not fractured."

Using a combination of satellite imagery and field measurements, Menegat mapped a dense web of intersecting fractures and faults beneath the UNESCO World Heritage Site. His analysis indicates these features vary widely in scale, from tiny fractures visible in individual stones to major, 175-kilometer-long lineaments that control the orientation of some of the region's river valleys.

Menegat found that these faults and fractures occur in several sets ... Because some of these faults are oriented northeast-southwest and others trend northwest-southeast, they collectively create an "X" shape where they intersect beneath Machu Picchu.

Menegat's mapping suggests that the sanctuary's urban sectors and the surrounding agricultural fields, as well as individual buildings and stairs, are all oriented along the trends of these major faults. ... Other ancient Incan cities, including Ollantaytambo, Pisac, and Cusco, are also located at the intersection of faults, says Menegat. "Each is precisely the expression of the main directions of the site's geological faults."

Menegat's results indicate the underlying fault-and-fracture network is as integral to Machu Picchu's construction as its legendary stonework. This mortar-free masonry features stones so perfectly fitted together that it's impossible to slide a credit card between them. As master stoneworkers, the Incas took advantage of the abundant building materials in the fault zone, says Menegat. "The intense fracturing there predisposed the rocks to breaking along these same planes of weakness, which greatly reduced the energy needed to carve them."

In addition to helping shape individual stones, the fault network at Machu Picchu likely offered the Incas other advantages, according to Menegat. Chief among these was a ready source of water. "The area's tectonic faults channeled meltwater and rainwater straight to the site," he says. Construction of the sanctuary in such a high perch also had the benefit of isolating the site from avalanches and landslides, all-too-common hazards in this alpine environment, Menegat explains.

The faults and fractures underlying Machu Picchu also helped drain the site during the intense rainstorms prevalent in the region. "About two-thirds of the effort to build the sanctuary involved constructing subsurface drainages," says Menegat. "The preexisting fractures aided this process and help account for its remarkable preservation," he says. "Machu Picchu clearly shows us that the Incan civilization was an empire of fractured rocks."
SOURCE: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190923140814.htm
 
That is a very interesting article and set of claims. I'm grateful you posted it EG.
 
That is a very interesting article and set of claims. I'm grateful you posted it EG.

Thanks ...

I haven't yet formed an opinion on the viability of Menegat's claims, but I greatly appreciate his cleverness in identifying practical benefits from the site's geological fracturing.

I can see how widespread fracturing would facilitate water capture and drainage. I was aware of the sophisticated system of water capture features at Machu Picchu, but it was a surprise to read Menegat's claim that 2/3 of the construction effort had been invested in the elaborate drainage system.

It also makes sense that natural fracturing of local rock beds would facilitate the legendary Incan stonework. If the stones were readily obtainable in chunks of the desired size, all that would be left to do would finally shaping them to fit together. In theory, this could significantly shrink the time and effort necessary to assemble such well-crafted stonework.
 
Incas learned to build better/safer due to earthquakes.

The Incan citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru is known for its marvelous stonework. But several structures at the site suffered through at least two earthquakes as they were being built, a new study suggests. Those temblors not only damaged walls, but also triggered a sudden change in construction techniques.

The study—an archaeological survey of three of Machu Picchu’s most significant temples—reveals more than 140 examples of damage. These include large blocks of stone that have shifted or whose corners have been chipped. Some of this damage can be attributed to slumping rocks or soil beneath the temples. But the movement of many damaged blocks, including substantial gaps between some formerly interlocking blocks of stone, was likely driven by seismic shaking from at least two major quakes, the team concludes. That’s because the type of damage seen on the corners of blocks embedded in the stone walls only occurs as they rhythmically clatter against each other during an earthquake, researchers report this month in the Journal of Seismology.

The quakes that rattled Machu Picchu likely occurred between 1438 and 1491 C.E., the period when the main parts of the city were developed and well before Europeans arrived in the area. A lack of written records or oral tradition make it difficult to narrow that window of time. Regardless of when those quakes occurred, construction thereafter shifted to a cheaper and easier scheme of merely stacking smaller blocks of rock (upper layer of stones, above right), not carving them so that they interlocked.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-10-22&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=3040956
 
Potentially one for the Shit Thread too...

Six tourists, including a French woman, have been arrested over accusations that they damaged Peru's cultural heritage by defecating in a sacred temple at the iconic Machu Picchu sanctuary.

"The six tourists are being detained and investigated by the public ministry for the alleged crime against cultural heritage," Cusco regional police chief Wilbert Leyva said on Monday, quoted by the local Andina news agency.

The tourists were arrested on Sunday (Jan 12) after park rangers and police found them in a restricted area of the Temple of the Sun, an important site at the Inca citadel.

Leyva said authorities had come across a "fracture" in a piece of stone that had "broken off a wall and caused a crack in the floor".

Cultural authorities from Cusco, the region where Machu Picchu is located, said faeces were found in the Temple of the Sun.

The group was made up of one French, two Brazilians, two Argentines and a Chilean, according to police.

They face at least four years in prison if found guilty of damaging Peru's heritage.


https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...-faeces-found-in-sacred-machu-picchu-12260592
 
Potentially one for the Shit Thread too...

Six tourists, including a French woman, have been arrested over accusations that they damaged Peru's cultural heritage by defecating in a sacred temple at the iconic Machu Picchu sanctuary.

"The six tourists are being detained and investigated by the public ministry for the alleged crime against cultural heritage," Cusco regional police chief Wilbert Leyva said on Monday, quoted by the local Andina news agency.

The tourists were arrested on Sunday (Jan 12) after park rangers and police found them in a restricted area of the Temple of the Sun, an important site at the Inca citadel.


Leyva said authorities had come across a "fracture" in a piece of stone that had "broken off a wall and caused a crack in the floor".

Cultural authorities from Cusco, the region where Machu Picchu is located, said faeces were found in the Temple of the Sun.

The group was made up of one French, two Brazilians, two Argentines and a Chilean, according to police.

They face at least four years in prison if found guilty of damaging Peru's heritage.


https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...-faeces-found-in-sacred-machu-picchu-12260592
Hmmm. Who regards it as 'sacred' now? Nobody follows that religion anymore.
Also... FFS. It's not a nice thing to do, but that poo will bio-degrade. No permanent damage from that.
The fracture? May not be their fault.
 
Hmmm. Who regards it as 'sacred' now? Nobody follows that religion anymore.
Also... FFS. It's not a nice thing to do, but that poo will bio-degrade. No permanent damage from that.
The fracture? May not be their fault.

It's seen a New Age revival, apparently. Though with very little in the way of human sacrifice, which is a shame, as there's 6 candidates right there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachamama#New_Age_worship

Looks like 5 will be deported, 1 charged.

Peruvian police say they will deport five tourists and prosecute another after they allegedly damaged stonework and defecated among the ruins at Machu Picchu, the Incan citadel that is one of South America’s most renowned tourist attractions.

Authorities said on Tuesday that the tourists, from Chile, Brazil, France and Argentina, sneaked into the ruins and caused a rock to fall from a wall of the Temple of the Sun, damaging it. One of the foreigners allegedly defecated inside the Incan city.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ver-alleged-damage-defecation-at-machu-picchu
 
Hmmm. Who regards it as 'sacred' now? Nobody follows that religion anymore. ...

By that logic it should be OK to take a crap in the Parthenon, the Pantheon, the Great Pyramid or Stonehenge.
 
... Authorities said on Tuesday that the tourists, from Chile, Brazil, France and Argentina, sneaked into the ruins and caused a rock to fall from a wall of the Temple of the Sun, damaging it. ...

Ahhhhh ... This later report is the first I've seen claiming the tourists were the ones who broke the stone off the wall and caused the fracture. This puts things in a different light, involving responsibility for actual structural damage ...
 
By that logic it should be OK to take a crap in the Parthenon, the Pantheon, the Great Pyramid or Stonehenge.
No - I wasn't saying it was OK to do so - I was just asking 'what made it a crime'.
 
"Peru opened the ruins of Machu Picchu for a single Japanese tourist after he waited almost seven months to enter the Inca citadel, while trapped in the Andean country during the coronavirus outbreak.

Jesse Takayama’s entry into the ruins came thanks to a special request he submitted while stranded since mid-March in the town of Aguas Calientes, on the slopes of the mountains near the site, said Minister of Culture Alejandro Neyra on Monday."

https://www.reuters.com/article/japan/idUSKBN26X2JW
 
Machu Picchu is apparently older than previously believed ...
Machu Picchu is older than previously thought

The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru was occupied from around 1420-1530 AD, several decades earlier than previously thought, according to a new study.

A team of researchers, led by Richard Burger, a professor of anthropology at Yale University, used radiocarbon dating to reveal that the emperor Pachacuti, who built Machu Picchu, rose to power earlier than expected, according to a news release published Tuesday.

This means Pachacuti's early conquests took place earlier, helping to explain how the Inca Empire became the largest and most powerful in pre-Columbian America.

Based on historical documents, it was thought that Machu Picchu was built after 1440, or maybe even 1450. However, Burger and his team used accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of human remains to get a more accurate picture. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/machu-picchu-peru-study-scli-intl-scn/index.html
 
Well, this is embarrassing ... There's good reason to suspect the famous ruined city wasn't named "Machu Picchu", and people have been referring to it using the wrong name for over a century since its (re-)discovery.
We May Have Been Calling Machu Picchu The Wrong Name For Over 100 Years

One of the most famous archaeological sites in the world may be named after a simple misunderstanding.

The ancient Incan city we know as 'Machu Picchu' should probably be called 'Picchu' or 'Huayna Picchu', according to a new analysis of historical documents.

In 1911, when the White American historian and explorer, Hiram Bingham, was first led to the ancient Incan ruins, he asked a local landowner to write down the name of the site in his field journal.

In the middle of the page, the local farmer, named Melchor Arteaga, wrote 'Macho Pischo', a word Hiram noted sounded more like 'pecchu' when spoken aloud.

From then on, the name stuck. For more than a century, the world has repeated this title time and time again, on maps, in documents and in history books. Only in the 1990s did some experts second-guess the moniker. ...
SOURCE: https://www.sciencealert.com/white-explorers-might-have-given-machu-picchu-the-wrong-name
 
New info about Machu Picchu's residents and where they came from.

Who lived at Machu Picchu at its height? A new study, published in Science Advances, used ancient DNA to find out for the first time where workers buried more than 500 years ago came from within the lost Inca Empire.

Researchers, including Jason Nesbitt, associate professor of archaeology at Tulane University School of Liberal Arts, performed genetic testing on individuals buried at Machu Picchu in order to learn more about the people who lived and worked there.

Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Cusco region of Peru. It is one of the most well-known archaeological sites in the world and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. It was once part of a royal estate of the Inca Empire.

Like other royal estates, Machu Picchu was home not only to royalty and other elite members of Inca society, but also to attendants and workers, many of whom lived in the estate year-round. These residents did not necessarily come from the local area, though it is only in this study that researchers have been able to confirm, with DNA evidence, the diversity of their backgrounds.

"It's telling us, not about elites and royalty, but lower status people," Nesbitt said. "These were burials of the retainer population."

This DNA analysis works in much the same way that modern genetic ancestry kits work. The researchers compared the DNA of 34 individuals buried at Machu Picchu to that of individuals from other places around the Inca Empire as well as some modern genomes from South America to see how closely related they might be.

The results of the DNA analysis showed that the individuals had come from throughout the Inca Empire, some as far away as Amazonia. Few of them had shared DNA with each other, showing that they had been brought to Machu Picchu as individuals rather than as part of a family or community group.

https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-dna-reveals-diverse-community.html
 
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