Machu picchu when was it built

Related: Image gallery: Inca child mummies. But in the new research, Burger and his co-authors found that human remains unearthed at the site show Machu Picchu was inhabited more than 20 years earlier than expected.

Machu Picchu is located high in the Andes , at a height of almost 8, feet 2, meters on a mountain ridge in Peru's Eastern Cordillera mountain range. It was abandoned in the s after the Spanish invasion and later became popularly known in the west as the "Lost City of the Incas," although its location was never unknown by local people. Yale University's Hiram Bingham led expeditions to the site in and , and it became world-famous in the decades that followed as an icon of the Inca civilization.

Archaeologists think Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the emperor Pachacuti, a hereditary ruler born in Cuzco, the Inca capital in what is now southeastern Peru. According to a chronology based on Spanish documents written after the conquest, the iconic citadel was built about , after Pachacuti ascended to power and began expanding the empire into the nearby regions.

Several newly refurbished sets of terraces were made available to the public for the first time in 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. A new theory proposed by the Italian archaeoastronomer Giulio Magli suggests that the journey to Machu Picchu from Cusco could have served a ceremonial purpose: echoing the celestial journey that, according to legend, the first Inca took when they departed the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca.

Rather than simply following a more sensible path along the banks of the Urubamba River, the Inca built the impractical but visually stunning Inca Trail, which according to Magli, prepared pilgrims for entry into Machu Picchu.

The final leg of the pilgrimage would have concluded with climbing the steps to the Intihuatana Stone, the highest spot in the main ruins. All rights reserved. Temple of the Sun The semicircular Temple of the Sun, constructed around a large boulder, offers commanding views of the Sacred Valley below.

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Environment Planet Possible India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big. These granite stones are the important building blocks of Machu Picchu. Amazingly, the foundation of Machu Picchu, built high atop a mountain, has been able to withstand seismic activity and rain-induced landslides throughout the centuries. Learn more about the Location of Machu Picchu.

Hidden among the cliffs and lush vegetation, the ancient city of Machu Picchu remained secret until the twentieth century, and not even the Spanish conquistadors in search of treasures, were able to find it. Machu Picchu was quiet, uninhabited and silent in the mists of the Peruvian highlands with its secrets hidden since it was abandoned before the conquest. In , explorer and Yale History Professor Hiram Bingham traveled to the Cusco area in search of Vilcabamba, the legendary last refuge of the Inca rebels where they organized guerilla-style resistance efforts until their final defeat in After mapping the site, Hiram Bingham was convinced that he had reached Vilcabamba.

Staff at the Yale University Peabody Museum inventoried the findings and placed them into storage rooms, where they languished for decades.