Everything you need to know about the Sanctuary of Machu Picchu – Part 2

A whole lot has been said about who built Machupicchu and for what specific purpose, and when. Bingham, the American school teacher who claimed to be the citadel’s discoverer in 1911, fantasized about it being a resort for the Virgins of the Sun, young girls dedicated to satisfy the Inca king’s worldly necessities, including reproduction. The awesome surroundings and the apparent impossibility to build on such steep mountains in the middle of the jungle, has inspired cranks and flakes of every plumage. “A bridge to pass to other dimensions”, said some. “The center of universal energy”, argue others, who, by the way, talk about four other “centers”. Of course the famed lost city could not be overlooked by Erich Von Daniken, who would have us believe it a gem of architecture left to peoplekind by an alien race from another galaxy. More reasonable thinking proposed other ideas. One of the most commonly upheld is that it was built as a defensive outpost against warriors from the eastern stretches of the Amazon forest. Although this one has a ring of authenticity, if one is to compare to the wacky kind of explanations listed above, the truth is that the Amazonian tribes, most likely busy with mere survival, were never a real threat to the Inca kingdom. The other common “theory” was that Machupicchu was a sacred city used for religious purposes. Proof of this, this group argues, is the semi-circular temple with three windows which adorns countless postcards and books. However, archaeologists have not found evidence that religion and ritual were the main activities performed in Machupicchu at the time of the demise of the Inca Empire, around 1526. Furthermore, Andean cosmovision is of such nature that the division of work and worship, sacred and profane was inexistent, so much that Inca symbols of divinity, such as semi-circular architecture and three-windowed buildings can be found virtually wherever the Incas set foot. In the early nineties, Ronald Wright in his “Stolen Continents” mentioned the countless agricultural terraces found everywhere on the slopes around Machupicchu. He wondered why there were so many of them, when it was known that the city never held more than four thousand inhabitants at any time. He also thought most puzzling the fact that not only the terraces varied enormously in length and width, but also that they were ubiquitous around the whole complex (actually, you can even fiind them up on the top of Wayna Picchu, the peak behind the ruins)