The world's oldest ancient civilizations such as China and
Egypt originated in the plains, while the Inca civilization originated in the
South American Andes at an altitude of over 6,000 meters. It is cut off by the
mountains, people speak different languages, have different living customs,
until the emergence of Inca civilization.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the tribal alliance of
Inca began to form. In 1438, the Incas made a decisive victory in the Battle of
Changka. The ruler at this time was the ninth commander of the Inca history,
PachaKuti. In Quechua, PachaKuti means reformers. The great reformers in the
Inca history transformed Inca from a tribal alliance into a powerful and
unified empire. His major political and religious reforms of the Inca Empire
opened the door to the Inca Empire.
Inca in the early 16th century, with an area of more than
2 million square kilometers. Its territory includes today's Peru, Ecuador and
Bolivia, with a population of more than 6 million.
At that time, people were rumored to be a mythical land.
There were golden caves everywhere. The gold was so incredible that the king of
gold in charge of this land changed every day with a new coat with golden sand.
This legendary magical land is the Inca Empire.
During the heyday of the Inca Empire, rulers built luxury
villas around Cusco (the Inca capital). The emperor can take his own entourage
and deal with national events in the country houses far away from the capital,
a bit like the Yuanmingyuan built by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty.
PachaKuti’s private villas are hailed as the best of them. Some historians and
archaeologists have judged that the ancient city of Machu Picchu was built
during the PachaKuti period.
The ancient city of Machu Picchu, which is more than 2,300
meters above sea level, is located on the steep and narrow ridge of the Andes.
It is heavily wrapped in the mountains and mountains. On the cliff side of the
mountain, people can enjoy a vertical cliff with a 600-meter drop to the
Urubamba River. From a distance, this ancient city seems to be able to slip
from a narrow ridge to the abyss at any time. This mysterious castle hidden in
the clouds is a true city of the sky.
Stone building inlaid on the cliff
Machu Picchu is about 120 kilometers away from the capital
city of Cusco, and the city covers an area of about 90,000 square meters.
Machu Picchu is small and can't even be called a city. There are 200 buildings,
including temples, houses, warehouses and some public facilities, made of
neatly cut stones.
About 1,000 people lived there, and the existing buildings
reflect the strict hierarchy of Inca society. The religious areas, civilian
areas, nobles and monks' residential areas are strictly divided.
The lower city is the peasant's house. The stone walls of
the stone house are well preserved. Only the thatched roof has long
disappeared. This is a typical Inca building. All buildings have no windows.
Each family has only one room. The stone building materials and materials here.
The urban area is much rougher, and the building is not as grand as the urban
area. Therefore, the lower city area is also known as the “civilian area”.
Shangcheng District is a palace and temple designed for the
nobility, the most striking of which is the Inca Palace and the Grand Tower.
The stone walls of these two buildings are very beautiful, comparable to the
Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Virgin in Cusco, the capital of Inca.
The eastern part of the city is a tombed area divided into
three layers. The first floor is the place where the gods of heaven live. The
second layer represents the mother of the earth, and the other layer represents
the underworld and the destination of life. The Incas believe that as long as
the body does not die, the human soul will not be separated from the body, so
the Inca nobles and priests are made into mummies after death. The Inca mummies
are naturally formed in the tombs. They are exposed to the sun during the day
and cold in the night. blow.
The choice of the ancient city ruins has been carefully
considered: two residential areas like the two wings of the bird sandwich a
square with a slightly concave terrain in the middle, the northeast is the
center of secular life, the southwest is a place for public activities; a small
square in the western religious area is set up. The shadow wall corresponds to
a sacred mountain in the north, and the shadow of the winter solstice summer
solstice passes through the window of the sun temple and must fall in the
middle of the temple.
The stones used in the Machu Picchu buildings are the
smoothest and flattened boulder. There are no bonds between the boulder, but
they are not even inserted into a thin piece of paper. The secret of this
process is unknown, like the craft of the ancient Egyptians building pyramids
on the other side of the globe. People have made many speculations about this.
Some people say that the Incas probably invented a chemical that would make the
stone soft.
Thousands of huge granite stones come from a quarry 600
meters below the mountain. Even today, when large vehicles such as pulleys,
cables, and aircraft can be used, it is extremely difficult to transport
massive stones to the cliffs. No one knows how the Incas are done.
a nation that catches up with the sun
It has been said that the Incas who worship the sun are
trying to get closer to the sun, so they chose to build a city in the towering
Andes. There is a speculation that the inca people whose homes were destroyed
have moved to the towering Machu Picchu, which is actually chasing the sun.
Like all Inca towns, the Temple of the Sun occupies the most
important position. The Temple of the Sun is the largest and most spectacular
building in the ancient city. It is also said to be the Inca's celestial
observatory, and its circular appearance is indeed similar to the Chichen Itza
Observatory in Mexico.
To the north of Machu Picchu, there is a smaller mountain
with a temple of the moon on the back, which is opposite to the Temple of the
Sun in the city, so it is also inferred that Machu Picchu is dedicated to the
worship of the sun god.
There is also a legend about the sun god and the moon god:
when the heavens and the earth are chaotic, the god of creation raises the sun
and the moon from Lake Titicaca, the largest freshwater lake in South America.
As a result, the moon has always boasted that it is bigger and brighter than
the sun. The humiliated sun grabbed a handful of sand and sprinkled it on the
face of the moon. This is the origin of the shadow on the moon we see today.
From then on, the moon can no longer surpass the sun, the sun becomes the
eternal boss, and has always protected the children and grandchildren of the Incas.
In Machu Picchu, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon are also from
this story.
Why did the empire die out?
In 1532, the Inca Empire was in its heyday, with 6 million
nationals. It mastered the advanced non-ferrous metal smelting and processing
technology at that time, and was able to produce first-class cold weapons, as
well as castles as dangerous as Machu Picchu. But after hundreds of Spanish
colonists broke into the Inca Empire, for a short time, the empire died, and
the Inca civilization of Machu Picchu lost.
In the history textbooks of American high schools, the
reasons for the loss of the Inca Empire were elaborated: in 1531, Francisco
Pizarro and 180 soldiers landed on the Pacific coast of South America. They
brought muskets and horses, and they also brought disease in Europe. The
residents of the Inca Empire had no resistance to this, and the Inca king also
died in the plague. After the death of the king, his two sons provoked a civil
war in order to compete for the throne. Atahualpa, one of the sons, defeated
the other side with the help of the Spanish Francisco Pizarro. After that,
Francisco Pizarro occupied the Inca Cuzco and used it as the capital. In 1535,
Pizarro established a new capital in Lima and turned it into another colony in
Spain. The smashing Inca empire died.
In 1532, the battle for the throne in the Inca Empire and
the plague epidemic, the Spanish army broke the kingdom, and the last king of
Inca, Atahualpa, became a prisoner of the Spanish. From the end of 1532 until
1533, Atahualpa had ruled the empire as a prisoner.
The King's bail was proposed by the Spaniard to fill up to 9
feet (about 2.7 meters) of gold in a 22-foot (about 6.6-meter) wide 17-foot
(about 5 meters) cell. In order to save the king, gold was continuously
transported along the road, looking far away, as if it were a continuous gold
line.
Every Inca city was ravaged by the Spanish colonists, and
the buildings and tombs inscribed with the Inca cultural symbols were spared.
The Spanish invasion also brought terrible smallpox, measles, cholera, plague,
etc. The ancient Inca people could not resist these diseases, and 95% of the
Incas died.
The controversial discoverer, Hiram Bingham
In 1911, the history professor of Yale University, Hiram Bingham organized an expedition expedition to investigate the Andes in Peru. The terrain is extremely steep and the mountain trails are covered in clouds.
One night, the expedition after a long journey went to a small mountain hotel. At rest, Bingham inadvertently listened to the owner saying that there is an abandoned mysterious ancient city at a height of the ridge not far away, and some Ruins of the Incas. Bingham convinced the owner to take him to the ancient city to find out.
The group went through a lot of hardships and boarded the steep Machu Picchu ridge. An ancient Inca city hidden in the vines and grasses, this is a well-preserved Inca city. The buildings in the city are all Inca traditional style: polished regular shaped walls, all buildings are piled with huge granite stones. to make. The city that Bingham found was Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu means the ancient mountains in Inca, and the Inca's intention to build the city is unknown. People couldn't know his original name, so he named it with the name of a mountain nearby.
Bingham completed an archaeological report of the region here, and wrote his first book on the topic of “The Lost Inca City”, which is very popular. In fact, although it can't be found on the map, Machu Picchu is far from being a "lost" city in the true sense.
When Bingham arrived, he found a farmer living here, and some foreign visitors had written names on charcoal on the granite. In 2002, these unseen traces were discovered. It was discovered that Bingham had deliberately concealed these traces in order to become a recognized Machu Picchu discoverer. It is said that Bingham’s light is to erase the paintings on the granite. It took a few days.
In 1912, Bingham and Yale University signed an agreement with the Peruvian government to bring back excavated Machu Picchu ancient artifacts such as pottery, jewelry, stoneware and human bones to the United States for 18 months of scientific research, Bingham. Brought 5,000 pieces of ancient artifacts back to Yale University, these artifacts are still not returned. In the next few years, the ancient city was cleaned up on the one hand, and on the other hand it was looted. Numerous gold and silver treasures disappeared, and boxed porcelain, bio-bone and rock were transported out of Peru.
Hiram Bingham, an explorer who has been in the history of archaeology, has not only enjoyed the creators of the discoverers, but also caused the retreat of Peru's cultural relics for nearly a hundred years and has been controversial.
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