Machu Picchu Road to the Sky

It is said that a Holy Spirit called Ukuku lives in the mountains of Peru. One hundred years ago, an explorer was climbing a mountain as if being led by this Holy Spirit. It was Hiram Bingham, an American archaeologist, looking for a legendary city of hidden gold. Bingham discovered a mysterious ancient ruins. All of a sudden, it appeared in front of me. It was covered with trees and moss, so it was difficult to see at first. But it was the most beautiful stone wall in the world. It was the ruins of the Incan civilization, which had flourished 500 years prior. It was the city in the sky built upon a sheer cliff called Machu Picchu. Out of all the world heritage sites, it is considered the most beautiful. The maze-like stone city sat at the top of a mountain, 2,400 meters above sea level, almost one kilometer in length. The Incan civilization was completely unique. It flourished in the high mountains and gave birth to Machu Picchu. The Andes in South America stood 6,000 meters above sea level. In this area divided by mountains, many different groups of people with different languages and cultures had lived separately until the Incan civilization appeared. Other major civilizations in the world, such as Rome, Egypt and China, all developed in large, flat areas. But the Incas created a large country in the Andes, spreading through western South America. The gigantic range covers 4,000 kilometers from north to south, with Peru now in its center. They united 80 different groups speaking different languages in only 50 years' time. How could the Incas have united the Andes, which were divided by mountains? How could the Incas have produced this incomparable civilization in the sky? Today we will delve into the mystery of the Incas. 80 kilometers east of Machu Picchu lies the capital city of the Inca Empire, Cusco, 3,400 meters above sea level. In the 15th century, the Incas built their capital here complete with stone aqueducts for their water and sewerage. But 100 years later, the Incas were overthrown by the Spaniards and the area was westernized. The clues needed to discover the Incas were lost in the colonial period. No written documents about Incas exist, since the Incan language did not have a writing system. The only clues available come from some of their descendants, or from chronicles made by the Spaniards during the early colonial period. This is a chronicle written in the 17th century by the Incan painter, Poma. The chronicle includes important records of Incan life, preserved in 500 pictures. He created the book for the Spanish king, so he could learn from the Incan system of government. Let's take a look at the life of the Incas based on these chronicles. A long time ago, people in the Andes lived without houses and sustained themselves by hunting and collecting nuts. A man calling himself the Son of the Sun appeared and he became the Incan emperor. He introduced stone masonry and his people created houses which later became cities. The Incan emperor taught the people agriculture and they produced great harvests in the severe environment. Incan society was so wealthy that there was enough food for everyone in the entire country. At the Inca ruins in the suburb of Cusco, you can see a reenactment of an Incan ceremony which is based on the chronicle. It is said that the 10 million Incan people lived without hunger. The Incan emperor, who called himself the Son of the Sun, ruled as the leader of the people. The Incas had neither iron nor writing, considered as necessary elements for all civilizations. But they had much greater wealth than the Europeans. The chronicle describes the Incan empire as a welfare state in which food and clothing were shared equally and the aged and the sick were cared for without worry. But after the Spanish conquered the Inca, the people were vexed by heavy taxes and harsh collections. The wealthy country once without hunger was lost. The Spaniards destroyed many cities, but Machu Picchu, the city on the top of the mountain, escaped their notice. This is an Andean animal, the llama. Now as then, people rely on llamas to transport goods in the steep mountains. Machu Picchu appeared suddenly in the 15th century in a mountainous region almost in the center of the empire. The city in the sky was built on a 500-meter cliff. It was considered the winter residence of the Incan emperor. Machu Picchu was established by the 9th Incan emperor, Pachacuti. He was the one who transformed the Incas from mildly influential in Cusco into an immense empire. It is said that Pachacuti moved from Cusco to Machu Picchu every winter. Let's walk here. A stone wall without any gaps at all. Waterways and springs were created by scooping out rocks. They used only stone hammers and bronze chisels. Everything in the city was built with precision stone masonry. Let's take a right on the stone steps. This area is thought to be the palace where Pachacuti lived. Here is a semicircular building with beautifully curved limestone walls called Torreon. Inside, there is a rock carved into a unique shape. The morning sunlight from the southeast window makes a complex-shaped shadow on the rock. It is said that the emperor held important ceremonies here. Under this Torreon, there is a mysterious cave believed to be Pachacuti's final resting place. It has been 100 years since these ruins were discovered during the excavation of Machu Picchu. What is interesting is that it has a black color, which is an evidence of the presence of tisne. Numerous kinds of goods were excavated. Silver pins for women to fasten the fronts of their garments. Mirs made of bronze. Pin sets to pull the hair of legs and arms. Gold bangles. Shell necklaces from the equatorial area. And some unique pottery from the Amazon. Even goods from 1,000 kilometers away have been found here. Because of the numerous Incan studies, we now have a pretty clear idea of how Pachacuti lived. Machu Picchu was built. Machu Picchu descended with all his nobility and royalty. He was accompanied by his sect. Women were chosen, with their food, their special drinks for their guests, with music. And in front of them, they were throwing flowers. The Inca walked on a platform, carried by very strong men, who walked on both sides. If an Inca's eye fell to the ground, a person would pick it up and keep it. Because they were afraid of hurting the Inca. They protected him. When Pachacuti, Inca, and Yupanqui arrived in Machu Picchu, there were canter masters. There were people who cut the stone in the canters. There were people who were building more buildings. But they were still building more. The Inca lived like a king. With servants, with people who supported him, who surrounded him. His house was beautiful. It was not only made of very fine stones, more or less of a light yellow, it was also reddish, a little pale. He slept almost in contact with the ground. But on top of the ground, there were very rich, very finely worked blankets. In the city could be found not only the emperor's attendants and the nobility, but also the masons, silversmiths and textile weavers living and working there. About a thousand people lived in Machu Picchu. The Incas created many stone cities like Machu Picchu in the Andes. How were the Incas able to unite so many cities divided by steep treacherous terrain in order to expand their nation? One clue can be found in the mountains of the Andes. 200 kilometers east of Machu Picchu, Kewe village lies in a range of steep mountains and gorges. It's an isolated village, so they need to suspend a rope bridge to access other villages. This bridge was made originally in the Inca era. The Incas established a number of bridges over gorges in the Andes as national projects. In the village of Kewe, all of the villagers join together to weave ropes to repair the weak bridges every year. It has been traditional group work since the Incan era. The thick ropes which they weave are taken across to the other side of the cliff, even at the risk of their own lives. Communities divided by deep gorges were united by bridges. In the 15th century, the Incas continued building connections with these non-related, other language-speaking communities. By establishing bridges and stone steps, Inca developed the Incan roads, supports to expand the empire. In Machu Picchu, where the emperor lived, they paid tremendous effort to create an Incan road. The Inca road was built among the steep cliffs 500 meters high. The Peruvian National Institute of Culture started excavating the Inca road connected to Machu Picchu. Here is a slippery cliff made of granite. Overhead, there was a thin Incan road 80 centimeters wide. The Incas connected Machu Picchu to the other cities by many different methods. How could they build a road in such a treacherous location? Leading this investigation commission, the archaeologist Alfredo Mormontoy. They dug out an Incan road hidden in foliage. The stone-cut base of the Incan road appeared. Some stones, cut and brought from that area, were piled at the rocky base of the mountain. It took great skill carving at the base to prevent the stones from collapsing. They found other skills. The Incas have foreseen the problem of water. There is a lot of water in Machu Picchu. This means that the water will pass through there and then it will not affect the walls. So, structurally it is very well worked. The construction is of high quality. The Incas built a road even among the steep cliffs, utilizing very advanced stone masonry skills. The investigation by the National Institute of Culture revealed that every Incan road was connected to Machu Picchu. The eight roads extended to neighboring mountains and were connected to the resources of the Amazon or to the capital city, Cusco. Machu Picchu, the city where the emperor lived, connected to everywhere in the empire with these eight roads. The Incan roads were extended from the capital city, Cusco. The roads were used for the emperor's inspection tours, military expeditions or for the transport of goods. The Inca roads were built more than 6,000 meters above sea level in the snowy mountains, where humans could never have gotten to. That's how the Incas could triumph over the severe environment of the Andes. The total length of the Inca roads is about 40,000 kilometers, according to local studies. The roads surrounded western South America. The road system was much bigger than the European ones and it helped the empire to flourish in the high mountain area. In the middle, between Machu Picchu and Cusco, there is a village called Maris. What kind of goods were transported on the Incan roads? There are clues to understand the Incans' everyday life in the lives of the Maris villagers. This man is the eldest resident of this village, Mr. Paulino Cinchi Roca, 77 years old. He's called the last Inca. The villagers of Maris live at 3,200 meters above sea level, in an environment of thin air and dramatic temperature changes. The days can get as hot as 30 degrees Celsius, but at night drops below zero. Cuy, guinea pigs, which the locals eat on special occasions, don't run far from the kitchen stove where they soak up the warmth. The Cinchi Roca family has kept the title to a piece of land passed down from generation to generation for 400 years since the colonial era. The ancient document mentions the ancestors of the Cinchi Rocas. The Inca has taught us how to eat with sauce, with anything, everything. He used to walk in the mountains too. On the land, they have made paths for each village. Around the Inca roads in the village, there are still many Incan ruins. This mysterious circle is called the Moray Ruins. It's considered to be the place where the Incas performed agricultural ceremonies. Mr. Cinchi Roca is walking on the bleached surface of this fascinating land. These are the Moris salt pans. The Incas made salt, indispensable to life here. Mr. Cinchi Roca gets salt weekly from these salt pans, which were passed down from his ancestors. The strong sunlight changes the high salinity groundwater into the salt. Salt was difficult to get in the mountain areas, so salt was a vital resource for the Inca Empire. With the sun, thanks to the sun, the Incas adored the sun. We used to go to Machu Picchu, Ullanta, Pizarra. At four o'clock in the morning, we would go to the salt pans. Salt, herbs, gold and silver, which were necessary to operate the empire as strategic items, were transported throughout the entire empire. The Inca road system was used not only for transporting goods, but also for communicating information of every kind. Along the Inca roads were post towns approximately every 20 kilometers. Messengers were positioned at these towns. The Incan road messengers were called chasqui. They made it across 280 kilometers in a single day via a relay system. Chasquis could deliver correct information, even from communities who spoke different languages, using strings called quipu. The positions, numbers and colors of knots communicated certain complex meanings and special tools were used to read the knots. Since they didn't have writing, it was necessary to have quipu to govern the empire. Quipu made it possible to give exact information, such as population and tax revenues of Incan cities, emergency savings and amount of livestock. There were special government officials capable of reading quipu, called quipu kamayok. Because of quipu, Incan emperors could understand events anywhere in the empire and could communicate to anywhere in the empire instantly. The Inca empire governed their cities by the Inca roads. But to build a society without hunger, they needed something else. This is a harvest festival held in a farm village near Cusco. The people of the Andes had suffered from food shortages for a long time. They dressed like the Holy Spirit Ukuku and whipped each other. They wished for bountiful fruit harvests with the humble sacrifice of their pain. This tradition was born in the Andes' inhospitable environment. It was necessary to have food storage in order to build a civilization here. Machu Picchu was built on the top of a mountain closer to the sun as an observatory for the Incan emperor. In Maris village along the Incan roads, an annual bartering market was held. Some people from a highland village at 4000 meters altitude brought some mountain animal furs and some local specialty pots to Maris. They will be exchanged with Maris' crops, which they are unable to produce in the highlands. Abundant agricultural crops were transported through the Incan roads and trading in the Andes led to prosperity. During the time of Pachacuti, so much from everywhere was being distributed, from the Pacific Ocean to the Andes, snowy mountains and the Amazonian jungle. It was a kind of distribution revolution. The descendant of the Incan emperor, Mr. Sinshi Roka, was here to get an urn. Tomorrow we will bring corn. So many goods were going back and forth on the Incan roads. This distribution system was the biggest key for the Incan empire to be able to make a society without hunger. Looking down on the market from the top of the hill, there are colcas, distribution centers, reconstructed. Just on this hill alone there were more than 200 colcas back then. They stored the food products transported on the Incan roads here. It was like a dispenser to store products. It was given like this, so that the air would come in, and in each part there were little holes. The salvadorians used it to store their products. They stored their products for up to 5, 6, 7 years. In colcas, the food stocks of the country were stored. This is a picture of the colcas drawn by Poma. Everywhere in the Andes you could see colcas in lines along the Incan roads. Agricultural stocks were taken as taxes from the entire country and stored. People mobilized to build Incan roads received food from the colcas as a reward. In lean years, the colcas' food saved people from starvation. A society without hunger was achieved only with the colcas. The economy of having the colcas full was, for the Inca state, what was the money saved in the banks. The Inca lordship quickly expanded. Let's reenact a day in the life of Machu Picchu as based on the chronicle. In a field, people, including neighboring tribes, were enjoying food stocks from the colca. The emperor, Pachacuti, looked down at the gathering and explained his philosophy of governing to his son. Look at all those satisfied people. The food stock in our colcas should be generously provided for the people. But if we give up all our bounty, won't that be a waste of our efforts? Let me tell you the reason why the Incas flourished. Stealing will bring no wealth, but giving brings wealth. According to the chronicle, before Pachacuti ascended to the throne, the Incas kept having wars with neighboring countries for food. The wars made the Incas so tired that they couldn't expand their power base. Pachacuti appeared during just such a circumstance. He built the Andenes, terraced fields and increased production. Instead of military force, he gave food and treasure to gain allies. Expanding the Incan roads brought commodities from far away and the colcas were filled with stock. Desiring a rich life, a large number of communities accepted the Inca's governing without resistance. Pachacuti, his son and grandson, in just about 50 years and 3 generations, expanded the Inca's power. The Incas became a huge empire governing 80 different nations, 4000 km long from north to south. The Incan emperor Pachacuti changed the life of the Andes. In 1471 he handed over the throne and a few years later he died. About 60 years after that, in 1532, some ships arrived at the Incan seashore from Spain to search for El Dorado, a legendary country of gold. 168 Spanish men landed and they were astonished when they saw the Incan roads and the colcas. The food of the colcas and the roads made their trip of searching for treasure easy. Surprise attacks with guns and horses were carried out. It surprised the Incan commoners and they tried to escape. Half of the imperial guards, 2000 men, died in the battle. The emperor Atahualupa, the great grandson of Pachacuti, was caught. He promised the conquerors enough gold to fill a room to pay his ransom. 6 tons of gold and 60 tons of silver were gathered from the entire country. But the conquerors executed the emperor Atahualupa after receiving the treasure. The Inca empire was done for. You can see the remainder of the chaos then in Machu Picchu. Near the Torreon, the building to observe the sun, an enormous amount of pottery was found. When the Spaniards approached Machu Picchu, they went to Vilcabana. Under Spanish rule, the Incan roads were gradually destroyed. Machu Picchu was covered by thick forest and had a 400-year sleep until its recent discovery. There are some remainders of partial Incan roads in the Andes. A village funeral is marching on a road. In this hostile environment, the Incan roads are still supporting people's lives. The investigative commission of Machu Picchu. They still perform the traditional ceremonies of the Incas. Praying for the safety of their investigation, they make a humble offering of holy leaves and animal mummies to the ground. In the cliffs under Machu Picchu, recently more and more of the stonework has been discovered. Machu Picchu, the city on the top of the mountain, was actually surrounded by countless levels of Andenes on the hill down to the bottom. Now we understand that the scale of Machu Picchu was much bigger than we thought. The Incas created an extensive empire in the Andes in the midst of the rising mountains. The Incas opened roads on steep cliffs, produced food and created a society without hunger. 500 years ago, there was a civilization in the sky that tried to flourish by giving.