Peru (4):
Machu Picchu

Photos by Adam Jones

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"Machu Picchu is both the best known and the least known of the Inca ruins. It is not mentioned in any of the chronicles of the Spanish conquistadors, and archaeologists today can do no more than speculate on its function. Although Machu Picchu was known to a handful of Quechua peasants who farmed the area, the outside world was unaware of its existence until the American historian Hiram Bingham stumbled upon it almost by accident on July 24, 1911. Bingham's search was for the lost city of Vilcabamba, the last stronghold of the Incas, and he thought he had found it at Machu Picchu. We now know that the remote ruins at Espiritu Pampa, much deeper in the jungle, are the remains of Vilcabamba. Machu Picchu remains a mysterious site, never revealed to the conquering Spaniards and virtually forgotten until the early part of this century.

"The site that was discovered in 1911 was very different from the one we see today. All the buildings were thickly overgrown with vegetation, and Bingham's team had to be content with roughly mapping the site. Bingham returned in 1912 and 1915 to carry out the difficult task of clearing the thick forest from the ruins, and he also discovered some of the ruins located on the Inca Trail. ... Despite these and more recent studies, knowledge about Machu Picchu remains sketchy. Over 50 burial sites, containing more than 100 skeletal remains (about 80% female), were discovered. An early theory that it was a city of chosen women who catered to the Incas' needs has lost support, and it is now thought that Machu Picchu was already an uninhabited, forgotten city at the time of the conquest. This would explain why it wasn't mentioned to the Spaniards. It is obvious from the exceptionally high quality of the stonework and the abundance of ornamental rather than practical sites that Machu Picchu must once have been an important ceremonial center."
- Lonely Planet, Peru

I.
Looking Towards the Hut of the Caretaker
of the Funerary Rock

What looks like a sheer wall in this photo is in fact an intricate
series of terraces.

II.
Machu Picchu Landscape

As a combination of natural setting and elegant human intervention,
I cannot think of a site in the world to match this one.

III.
A Noble Beast

IV.
Machu Picchu Self-Portrait

V.
The Classic View

Probably several million people have their own version of this
photograph, but here's mine. The spill of terracing in the foreground,
with a precipitous drop just below, amazes me.

VI.
Machu Picchu Stonework

VII.
A Last View of Machu Picchu

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All photographs are copyright Adam Jones 2002. Permission is granted for non-commercial use
if the author is acknowledged and notified.
adamj_jones@hotmail.com