UNMSM

LANGUAGE’S CENTRE

ENGLISH

INTERMEDIATE

7

C U S C OL A N D O F T H E I N C A S

1. History

2. Location

3. Machu Picchu santuary

4. Three sectors

5. Architecture

6. Inca road sistem

7. Rediscovery

8. Visiting Machu Picchu

9. Concerns over tourism

Cusco is a city in southeastern Perú, near the Urubamba Valley (Sacred Valley) of the Andes Mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region as well as the Cusco province. The city has a population of about 300,000, triple the population it contained just 20 years ago. The altitude of the city, located on the eastern end of the Knot of Cusco, is around 3,500 m (11,500 feet).

Cusco, the city

Website: www.municusco.gop.pe

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian city created by the Inca Empire. It is located at 2,430 m (7,970 ft) altitude on a mountain ridge. Machu Picchu is located above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, about 70 km (44 mi) northwest of Cusco. Forgotten for centuries by the outside world, although not by locals, it was brought back to international attention by archaeologist Hiran Bingham in 1911.

Machu Picchu The Sacred Valley

Machu Picchu is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. It is often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas". The site was designated as a World Heritage site in 1983. when it was described as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization"

The Intihuatana ("sun-tier") is believed to have been designed as an

astronomic clock by the Incas

HISTORYMachu Picchu was constructed around 1450, at the height of the Inca empire, and was abandoned less than 100 years later, as the empire collapsed under Spanish conquest. Although the citadel is located only about 50 miles from Cusco, the Inca capital, it was never found and destroyed by the Spanish, as were many other Inca sites. Over the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew to enshroud the site, and few knew of its existence. In 1911, Yale historian and explorer Hiram Bingham brought the "lost" city to the world’s attention.

On July 7, 2007, Machu Picchu was voted as one of New Open World Corporation's New Seven

Wonders of the World.

Machu Picchu is 70 kilometers northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,350 meters above sea level. It is one of the most important archaeological centers in South America and the most visited tourist attraction in Peru.From the top, at the cliff of Machu Picchu, is a vertical precipice of 600 meters ending at the foot of the Urubamba River. The location of the city was a military secret because its deep precipices and mountains were an excellent natural defense.

LOCATION

MACHU PICCHU SANTUARYIn 1981 an area of 325.92 square

kilometres surrounding Machu Picchu was declared a "Historical Sanctuary" of Peru. This area, which is not only limited to the ruins themselves, also includes the regional landscape with its flora and fauna, highlighting the abundance of orchids.One theory maintains that Machu Picchu was an Incan "llacta": a settlement built up to control the economy of the conquered regions and that it may have been built with the purpose of protecting the most select of the Incan aristocracy in the event of an attack. Machu Picchu was an estate of the Inca emperor Pachacuti. Johan Reinhard presents evidence that the site was selected based on its position relative to sacred landscape features, especially mountains that are in alignment with key astronomical events.

According to the archaeologists, the urban sector of Machu Picchu was divided into three great districts: the Sacred District, the Popular District, to the south, and the District of the Priests and the Nobility (royalty zone).Located in the first zone are the primary archaeological treasures: the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun and the Room of the Three Windows. These were dedicated to Inti, their sun god and greatest deity. The Popular District, or Residential District, is the place where the lower class people lived. It includes storage buildings and simple houses to live in.

Temple of the Sun

Three sectors

Architecture All of the construction in Machu Picchu uses the classic Inca architectural style of polished dry-stone walls of regular shape. The Incas were masters of this technique, called ashlar, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without mortar. Many junctions in the central city are so perfect that not even a knife fits between the stones. The Incas never used the wheel in any practical manner. How they moved and placed enormous blocks of stones is a mystery, although the general belief is that they used hundreds of men to push the stones up inclined planes. It is unknown if the Incas left behind any documentation about that process; if there is narrative information in the record keeping system they employed, called khipus, which is currently not readable. The space is composed of 140 constructions including temples, sanctuaries, parks and residences, houses with thatched roofs.

Inca wall at Machu Picchu

Among the thousands of roads constructed by the pre-Columbian cultures in South America, the roads of the Inca were some of the most interesting. This network of roads converged at Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire. One of them went to the city of Machu Picchu. The Incas distinguished between coastal roads and mountain roads, the former was called Camino de los llanos (road of the plains) and the latter was called Cápac Ñam.Today, tens of thousands of tourists walk the Inca roads – particularly The Inca Trail – each year, acclimatising at Cusco before starting on a two- to four-day journey on foot from the Urubamba valley up through the Andes mountain range.

Inca road system

View of Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu, showing the

Hiram Bingham Highway used by buses carrying tourists to and from the town of Aguas Calientes.

Simone Waisbard, a long-time researcher of Cusco, claims Enrique Palma, Gabino Sánchez and Agustín Lizárraga left their names engraved on one of the rocks there on July 14, 1901, having rediscovered it before Bingham. Likewise, in 1904 an engineer named Franklin spotted the ruins from a distant mountain. He told Thomas Paine, an English Plymouth Brethren Christian missionary living in the region, about the site.

Rediscovery

In 1906, Paine and another Brethren missionary named Stuart E McNairn (1867-1956) climbed up to the ruins. Five years later, in 1911, Paine talked with Bingham and outfitted him with guides and mules for journey to the site. What makes Bingham the "rediscoverer" of Machu Picchu is the fact that he was the one who brought Machu Picchu to the world's attention.

View of the city of Machu Picchu in 1911

Visiting Machu PicchuAll visits to Machu Picchu at

some point leave from Cusco, which can be reached via a domestic flight from Lima. Taking the tourist train from Cusco (which takes 3.5 hours to get to Machu Picchu), you have several options.The most common way is to take the train to Machu Picchu in the morning, explore the ruins for a few hours and return to Cusco in the afternoon. The train terminates at Puente Ruinas station, where buses take tourists up the mountain to Machu Picchu. Strangely, Machu Picchu station is at Aguas Calientes (2 km before Puente Ruinas station) but is not the station used by tourists on a day trip

View looking down the terraced steps to the Urubamba river

Concerns over tourism Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage site. As Peru’s

most visited tourist attraction and major revenue generator, it is continually threatened by economic and commercial forces. In the late 1990s, the Peruvian government granted concessions to allow the construction of a cable car to the ruins and development of a luxury hotel, including a tourist complex with boutiques and restaurants. These plans were met with protests from scientists, academics and the Peruvian public, worried that the greater numbers of visitors would pose tremendous physical burdens on the ruins.A growing number of people visit Machu Picchu (400,000 in 2003), For this reason, there were protests against a plan to build a further bridge to the site and a no-fly zone exists in the area. UNESCO is considering putting Machu Picchu on its list of endangered World Heritage Sites.Damage to the site due to usage has occurred. In September 2000 a centuries-old sundial at Machu Picchu was damaged by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency while filming an advertisement for Cusqueña beer.

THE END

CUSCO LAND OF INCAS

U N M S M

ENGLISH

INTERMEDIATE 7

PATRICIA PINO

JHONN GUERRA

RENZO FALCÓN

2007