Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (7 page)

This marvellous Inca sanctuary, which was lost for three hundred years, has at last become a veritable Mecca for ambitious tourists. Everyone who goes to South America wants to see it. It used to be two or three hard days’ journey from Cuzco, on mule-back and on foot, but now it can be reached by train and car in one day. A fair motor road has been built there. Furthermore, Cuzco, which used to be a week away from Lima, can now be reached by aeroplane in a few hours! Pilgrims come from Buenos Aires and Santiago as well as from New York and Washington. They all agree with the late Frank Chapman of beloved memory that ‘in the sublimity of its surroundings, the marvel of its site, the character and the mystery of its construction, the Western Hemisphere holds nothing comparable’.

After I found it in 1911, Yale University and the National Geographic Society made it possible for me to explore the region in 1912 and 1915 and to publish the results of our studies. Those reports have long since been out of print. Meanwhile, various documents have come to light and professional archaeologists have advanced our knowledge of the Incas to the point where it has seemed worthwhile to collect all that is known about Machu Picchu, its origin, how it came to be lost, and how it was finally discovered, and present it here in popular form for
the benefit of those who may be curious about the Incas and the sacred city that they successfully hid from the Spanish conquerors.

In the heart of their country, about 50 miles away from their capital city of Cuzco, is the Grand Canyon of the Urubamba, one of the most wonderful places in the world. For centuries travellers could not visit it because a sheer granite precipice, rising 2,000 feet from the banks of the river, defied all efforts to pass it. The planters who raised coca and sugar in the lower valley could bring their produce to market only over a snow-covered pass as high as the top of Pike’s Peak (14,109 ft.). Finally they persuaded the Peruvian government to open a river road by blasting it across the face of the great granite precipice. They had been using it for several years without being aware that on top of a steep ridge 2,000 feet above them were the ruins of a great Inca sanctuary. Raimondi, greatest of Peruvian explorers, was ignorant of them. Paz Soldan’s elaborate geographical dictionary of Peru makes no mention of them, although their existence had been rumoured in 1875. Charles Wiener, an energetic French explorer, had looked for them then without success. They had been visited by several energetic
mestizos
(half-castes) and a few Indians. Quite a number of ambitious treasure hunters had tried to find the last Inca capital. The new road made possible the discoveries of the Peruvian Expeditions which are herein described.

The Peruvian Government now maintains a small but comfortable hotel at Machu Picchu, where my wife and I spent several happy days in October 1948. The magnificent views at sunrise and sunset make it well worth while to stay overnight. The altitude is only 7,650 feet, and the nights are quite cool.
¹

¹
This final paragraph was added by Bingham to the second and subsequent editons of the book.

I
n the beginning the word Inca, which means king or emperor, was the term applied only to the chief of that remarkable people whose courage and genius for organization had enabled them to conquer most of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, as well as the northern parts of Chile and Argentina. Then came the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century and applied the term to the ruling class, members of the Inca’s family and the nobles and priests who governed the Inca Empire. Soon, however, they were all killed off and by the end of the century scarcely one was to be found anywhere. Today we use the term Inca to cover the race who in the course of several thousand years built up a great civilization in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia. The builders of Machu Picchu were the descendants of generations of skilled artisans, but those who directed the workmen were the Incas whose capital for centuries was Cuzco.

Strictly speaking, the first Inca was a war-like chieftain of the Quichua tribe of Indians who ruled over Cuzco about
AD
1200, and was worshipped as a demi-god, the son of the Sun. It was perhaps only a hundred years before the arrival of Pizarro and the conquistadors that the ninth Inca, properly so called, extended the Empire as far north as Ecuador and as far south as Argentina. As a matter of fact the Inca Empire had just about passed its prime when the Spaniards landed. Had they arrived in the days of the great Inca Pachacutec (
c
. 1450) they would have
received short shrift. As it happened they arrived when the empire was weakened by a long civil war.

As there are no written records and the interpretation of the
quipus
or knotted cords as well as of the history of the past depended on the memory or the imagination of the persons who were interviewed by the first Spanish chroniclers, we cannot be certain of date or events. It appears likely that the development of such arts and sciences as agriculture, metallurgy, ceramics, weaving and engineering took place chiefly in the centuries which preceded the first Inca. Yet it has become convenient to use the term Inca to apply to the civilization and the people whom the Spaniards found in Peru, just as we use the term Aztec to apply to the civilization of Mexico, and the term Maya to apply to the civilization found in Yucatan and Guatemala. Actually there were many Peruvian tribes that had been independent nations long enough, before they were conquered by the Incas, to develop remarkable artistic ability in ceramics and textiles.

One of the most interesting places in the world is Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Empire of the Incas. In the days of the Spanish Conquest of Peru it was the largest city in America. On a hill behind it is a very old fortress, for centuries a place of refuge. The northern wall of that fortress is perhaps the most extraordinary structure built by ancient man in the western hemisphere. In fact, as an achievement of engineering, it stands without parallel in American antiquity. The smaller blocks in the wall weigh 10 or 20 tons. Larger blocks are estimated to weigh 200 tons. A few of the largest weigh 300 tons! And yet they are fitted accurately together. There are no clamps. There was no cement used in constructing the wall. The gigantic polygonal blocks cling so closely together that it is impossible to insert the point of a knife between them. And they were brought from quarries more than a mile away where they were fashioned by people using stone tools. They were moved over an inclined plane by levers. The Incas had no iron or steel, but they had bronze crowbars of great strength. They had no derricks or pulleys or wheels but they had thousands of patient workers.
The determination and the perseverance of the builders staggers the imagination.

As we study their architecture we see that it is marked by good proportions and symmetrical arrangement as well as by massiveness and solidity. Some of their temples and palaces were built of carefully selected ashlars of white granite. The lower tiers of a wall are made of larger blocks than the upper. This gives it a look of massive security. The upper courses, gradually decreasing in size, lend grace and dignity to the structure. Since instruments of precision were lacking, everything had to be done by the trained eye of the artistic architect. The result is softer and much more pleasing than that of the mathematically correct walls of our world. Everyone who visits Machu Picchu will agree that its builders were superb stone masons.

In the city of Cuzco, as well as in other well-known Inca towns, the walls of temples and palaces are not perpendicular but slope slightly inward. They are of so-called Egyptian style, being narrower at the top than at the bottom.

If one visits outlying places one finds story-and-a-half houses with gable ends. They seem to be characteristic of structures which were built not very long before the Spanish Conquest. Usually on the outside of each gable end may be seen a row of roughly cylindrical blocks or stone pegs bonded into the wall and projecting a foot or so from its surface. At first sight one might suppose this characteristic feature of Inca architecture to be merely ornamental, since these stone pegs suggest the idea of being the petrified ends of wooden beams and purlins. This pleasant theory of wooden origin, reminiscent of Doric architecture, seems to be incorrect. In the gable ends of some modern Indian huts wooden pegs similarly placed are used as points to which the thatched roof is tied. It would appear, therefore, that the stone pegs bonded into the Inca gables were not merely ornamental but served a useful purpose.

One day, in the process of carefully cleaning the gable ends of
a very finely built Inca house at Machu Picchu, we made an interesting discovery of an architectural feature which had hitherto entirely escaped the notice of archaeologists or architects. Buried in the sloping edge of the gable wall was a thin slab of rough stone with a chamfered hole, or eye, about 2 inches from the outer end. We called this an eye-bonder. It was set into the gable wall at right angles to its slope in such a way as to be flush with the surface, a little space being left on each side so that the eye could easily be reached when it was desired to lash the purlins to the steep pitch of the gable. Investigation showed that there were usually eight or ten of these eye-bonders in every gable. These little stone slabs were about 2 feet long, 6 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. The chamfered hole apparently was bored by means of pieces of bamboo rapidly revolved between the palms of the hands, assisted by a liberal use of sand and water. Of course such a method required time and patience, but produced results just as satisfactory as the use of mallet and chisel and was less likely to split the stone.

The Incas did not use tiles or shingles to cover their roofs, but had to depend on thatch made of grass or bushes. The thatch was tied to the purlins and was kept from blowing away by being tied to the ends of the projecting roof pegs while the purlins themselves were fastened to the gables by being tied to the eye-bonders.

So far as I have been able to learn, this method of supporting a thatched roof on a sloping gable was invented and perfected by the Incas and has never been used in any other part of the world. Possibly its invention was due to the fact that the plateau where Inca architecture flourished is treeless and wind-swept. Incidentally, the absence of trees in the temperate valleys of the Peruvian highlands was not due to the altitude, because I found primeval forests growing at 15,000 feet in the more inaccessible parts of the Cordillera Vilcabamba. It undoubtedly resulted, as in China, from the very long period of human occupation and the necessity for fuel. Had there been more forests and plenty of wood the Incas would not have had to build stone houses.

The doors of Inca houses were usually high enough for the tallest Peruvian to enter comfortably without bumping his
head. As in ancient Egypt, the bottom of the door was wider than the top. Lintels were sometimes of wood if the buildings were constructed near a forested region, but otherwise were composed of two or three long blocks of stone. In more important structures the Incas went to the trouble of using monolithic lintels even when they weighed 1 or 2 tons. Since they had no derricks or pulleys it is believed that they raised a monolithic lintel to its place by building a mound of earth and stone in front of the door. Then by using levers made of hard wood, and possibly rollers of the same material, and the principle of the inclined plane, they brought the heavy lintel to the top of the door without serious trouble. When they had fitted the lintel securely in place, the mound was removed.

Their houses were frequently arranged round a courtyard to form a compound, as in the Far East. To this compound there was usually but one entrance. Sometimes the façade of the gateway had a re-entrant angle as though the doorway had been let into the back of a large niche. Entrances to compounds were furnished with the means of fastening a bar across the inside of the door. Stone cylinders or pegs, which I have called bar-holds, were keyed into the gateposts during their construction. Sometimes the bar-holds were anchored into the wall by being set into a cavity cut out of one of the larger blocks of the gatepost. It was feasible to lash a bar to the bar-holds, which were able to resist at least as much pressure as the cross-bar which was lashed to it.

It is possible, however, that these bar-locks supported nothing more formidable than a taboo stick which would prevent a superstitious person from entering a compound where he was not wanted. There is a reference to this subject in the will of one of the Spanish conquistadors. He declares that when an Indian went from home the doors were left open but that there was ‘a little stick across the door as the sign that the master was out and nobody went in’. In a memorial addressed to his sovereign, Philip II, he added, ‘When they saw that we placed locks and keys on our doors they understood that it was from fear of thieves and when they saw that we had thieves amongst us they despised us.’

The practice of placing only a little stick across the door was made possible in part by the fact that among the Incas private property of individuals was limited to a few personal possessions, dishes, shawl-pins, cooking utensils, and clothing. Under a benevolent despotism like that of the Incas where no one was allowed to go hungry or naked, where everyone was told what to do and when to do it, and where everything of importance belonged to the ruler, there was no object in attempting to acquire the personal possessions of others, nor was there any incentive to accumulate anything which was not in daily use.