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TRAVEL
MACHU PICCHU
The ruins of Machu Picchu,
rediscovered in 1911 by Yale
archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are one
of the most beautiful and enigmatic
ancient sites in the world. While
the Inca people certainly used the
Andean mountain top (9060 feet
elevation), erecting many hundreds
of stone structures from the early
1400's, legends and myths indicate
that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak'
in the Quechua language) was revered
as a sacred place from a far earlier
time. Whatever its origins, the Inca
turned the site into a small (5
square miles) but extraordinary city.
Invisible from below and completely
self-contained, surrounded by
agricultural terraces sufficient to
feed the population, and watered by
natural springs, Machu Picchu seems
to have been utilized by the Inca as
a secret ceremonial city. Two
thousand feet above the rumbling
Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded
ruins have palaces, baths, temples,
storage rooms and some 150 houses,
all in a remarkable state of
preservation. These structures,
carved from the gray granite of the
mountain top are wonders of both
architectural and aesthetic genius.
Many of the building blocks weigh 50
tons or more yet are so precisely
sculpted and fitted together with
such exactitude that the mortarless
joints will not permit the insertion
of even a thin knife blade. Little
is known of the social or religious
use of the site during Inca times.
The skeletal remains of ten females
to one male had led to the casual
assumption that the site may have
been a sanctuary for the training of
priestesses and /or brides for the
Inca nobility. However, subsequent
osteological examination of the
bones revealed an equal number of
male bones, thereby indicating that
Machu Picchu was not exclusively a
temple or dwelling place of women.
One of Machu Picchu's primary
functions was that of astronomical
observatory. The Intihuatana stone (meaning
'Hitching Post of the Sun') has been
shown to be a precise indicator of
the date of the two equinoxes and
other significant celestial periods.
The Intihuatana (also called the
Saywa or Sukhanka stone) is designed
to hitch the sun at the two
equinoxes, not at the solstice (as
is stated in some tourist literature
and new-age books). At midday on
March 21st and September 21st, the
sun stands almost directly above the
pillar, creating no shadow at all.
At this precise moment the sun "sits
with all his might upon the pillar"
and is for a moment "tied" to the
rock. At these periods, the Incas
held ceremonies at the stone in
which they "tied the sun" to halt
its northward movement in the sky.
There is also an Intihuatana
alignment with the December solstice
(the summer solstice of the southern
hemisphere), when at sunset the sun
sinks behind Pumasillo (the Puma's
claw), the most sacred mountain of
the western Vilcabamba range, but
the shrine itself is primarily
equinoctial.
Shamanic legends say that when
sensitive persons touch their
foreheads to the stone, the
Intihuatana opens one's vision to
the spirit world (the author had
such an experience, which is
described in detail in Chapter one
of Places of Peace and Power, on the
web site, www.sacredsites.com).
Intihuatana stones were the
supremely sacred objects of the Inca
people and were systematically
searched for and destroyed by the
Spaniards. When the Intihuatana
stone was broken at an Inca shrine,
the Inca believed that the deities
of the place died or departed. The
Spaniards never found Machu Picchu,
even though they suspected its
existence, thus the Intihuatana
stone and its resident spirits
remain in their original position.
The mountain top sanctuary fell into
disuse and was abandoned some forty
years after the Spanish took Cuzco
in 1533. Supply lines linking the
many Inca social centers were
disrupted and the great empire came
to an end. The photograph shows the
ruins of Machu Picchu in the
foreground with the sacred peak of
Wayna Picchu towering behind.
Partway down the northern side of
Wayna Picchu is the so-called
"Temple of the Moon" inside a
cavern. As with the ruins of Machu
Picchu, there is no archaeological
or iconographical evidence to
substantiate the 'new-age'
assumption that this cave was a
goddess site.
PERU NEW DISCOVERY
Calle
Triunfo, 392 Off.210
Arte Inka Shoping Center - Cusco -
Peru
Phono: +51-84-235190
Cell.:
+51-84-984-606757
;
+51-84-984051597
Web Sites
:
www.perunewdiscovery.com |
www.incatrailnewdiscovery.com
www.salkantaynewdiscovery.com |
www.cuscohotelsnewdiscovery.com
www.travelmachupicchunewdiscovery.com
Email:
info@perunewdiscovery.com
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