Why Machu Picchu is Peru’s most visited tourist attraction ?
Machu Picchu, also known as The Lost City of the Incas, is an impressive citadel in the Andean tropical mountains near Cuzco in Peru. It consists of 13 square kilometers of terraced stonework. The monumental stone ruins were discovered in 1911 by the American anthropologist Hiram Bingham.
Since its discovery, Machu Picchu has been attracting a huge number of travelers throughout the time, reaching 400.000 in 2003. Some of you probably wondering why is this place so visited? Below you will find some answers.
Machu Picchu is a complex city, perched perilously on top of a mountain, a work of architectural genius. This extraordinary place, built on a steep mountainside overlooking the rapid waters of the Urubamba River, was a place inhabited and visited only by the chosen few of the Inca Empire.
The inhabitants of Machu Picchu were priests, official representatives of the Inca Emperors, craftsmen and, most importantly mamacunas, women chosen to dedicate their lives to the sun god. It seems that women were in the majority in the city. When archeologists began excavating the area, they found 173 skeletons, of which 150 were women.
Machu Picchu was a city without poor people, a city of temples, small but carefully constructed homes, aqueducts, fountains and walkways, plus five hectares of cultivated farmland, organized in an intricate system of terraces. The whole system was linked by more than three thousand steps. The city is divided into sections: the cemetery, the jails, the small dwellings and the temples, built for the sun worship which was central to Inca religion. The main temple is the Temple of the Three Windows. The sun passes through its windows and shines on to the Sacred Plaza, which might have played an important part in sun rituals. On a slope in front of the city is the Condor Stone, a flat altar in the image of a condor’s head and body. A hole at the front of the head leads below to a small cave; sacrifices probably took place on the altar and the blood from those ceremonies was collected in the cave below.
The magnificent buildings from Machu Picchu are the work of a people with great talent, people who had created a complex and sophisticated society. Machu Picchu remains a remarkable monument to the skills of the inhabitants of the Inca empire.
Machu Picchu ruins
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