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Stone Window

Stone Window at Machu Picchu

The Lost City at Machu Picchu is located high up in the Andean mountains, rising above the Uruabamba Valley in Peru. The Incas who lived there were master craftsman who had remarkable engineering skills and understanding of the night skies. With these skills they built temples and cities with such precision and planning that many of their achievements still cannot be matched even with today's technology.

The Inca were able to live in what many considered to be desolate environments. They were able to tame the impossibly steep walls of the Valley by terracing them and developing an irrigation system that gave precise control to each level to afford the growth of a variety of different crops.

Their stone work is nothing short of remarkable. Each stone in their buildings was hand carved with such precision that they each fit together like a puzzle and hold solidly without the use of bonding agents like mortar. In fact it is impossible to slide a sheet of paper between almost any pair of rocks.

The inca carved a large stone called an Intihuatana, which was used as a calendar. How the sun made shadows across the different rises of the rock would determine the time of year - which was esssential for the growing/harvesting season.

As I walked around the city, you could feel the spirit and the presence of the Inca at every turn

Watermarks do not appear in the final prints
All images on this website are © Timm J Chapman
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