Machu Picchu – Summer Palace of the Inca Kings. But what else was going on in 1450.

….. There is no doubt that Machu Picchu is a magnificent sight and wonderful reason to visit Peru. It was built around 1450 as a summer retreat for the Inca kings whose capital was in Cusco about 65km away. It was a trek then and it is a trek now as the only way to get here is by narrow gauge train down the Sacred Valley of the Incas and then by terrifying shuttle bus up the last 3000 feet to this col in the Andes.

The Incas grew to dominate from the Andes to the Pacific from the around 1250 to 1450 when they ruled by alliances, marriages, or force over 12 million people across modern Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina. When the Spanish showed up, that all changed. The King knew a losing proposition when he saw one and disappeared leaving his attendants to fight over Machu Picchu and quickly to abandon it. The Spanish didn’t even know it was here and it was only “discovered” again in 1911 by an enterprising American archaeologist, Hiram Bingham. Serious archaeology didn’t start until the 1970s.

But, despite its power and grandeur, the Inca kingdom was essentially primitive. In the late 15th century,, when Machu Picchu was built, what was happening elsewhere? Well in Europe this was in the full flowering of the Renaissance, the Medici Palace was built, the Forbidden City, half of the cathedrals we visit, Leonardo da Vinci, the Chateaux de la Loire, and, obviously, well powered armies and navies that had a profound effect on South America and the Incas.

It’s good to be King but it’s better to have technology.

The other two photos: two preservationists cleaning Machu Picchu with toothbrushes, I kid you not, and war clubs that were in current use by the Incas when Pissaro showed up. (From the excellent Museum of Precolumbian Art in Cusco)