Nestling within the densely-wooded Andean Mountains in the southern hemisphere — not too far from the Pacific Ocean coasts — is a solitary, vertical escarpment in the Peruvian region: rising to a sheer height of 8,000 feet. Atop this precipice is the enigma of the 15th-century Inca civilisation: the sprawling city of Machu Picchu. Forgotten mysteriously over the entire half millennium, Machu Picchu is still a riddle shrouded in a mysterious aura.
Why was it built at that inaccessibly lofty heightIJ Was it meant to be a fortress-township protected against possible invasionsIJ Or, was it a place for the Inca emperors woven with secret stories of sacred virgins who were ‘consecrated’, since the age of eight, to their royal masters for their entire life-spanIJ Or, was it the citadel for performing esoteric rituals, marked by sacrifice of nubile Inca boys whose skulls still stumble out from gravesIJ Or, was it the paragon of sun-worship, for which high pedestals of stones were marked with stone-pillars: casting shadows — in summer and winter solstices — still with incredible accuracyIJ Or, was the city all of these, rolled into oneIJ
Ghosts of Machu Picchu: Inside the Incan City in the Clouds, recently screened in the Capital, was not a pointer to these parables prevalent around the iconic place, but a more sober account of a new generation of archaeologist, palaeontologists and computer scientists as they probed, in 2014, areas of Machu Picchu that had not been touched since the time of the Incas and unearth burials of the people who had built the sacred site. The film was directed by the Peruvian documentary-maker Alan Ritsko for the National Geogrphic Series who raises himself the questions, “Why did the Incas build on such an inaccessible heightIJ Who lived among its stone-buildings — while the city was made for about 1,000 people — farmed its emerald green terraces and drank from its sophisticated aqueductsIJ”
Before Ritsko’s questions are taken up, a curious Indian visitor would have many other queries crowding in his mind. Apart from the chance resemblance of the names ‘Inca’ and ‘India’, some living quarters in Machu Picchu, beside the sector for the royalty, contained accomodation for the nobility — a group of houses located in rows over a slope — as residence of the amautas (wise persons). They, in India, would be called amatyas (royal men), in Sanskrit. In the absence of iron and mortar, the Incas were masters of the stone-cutting technique, called ashlar, under which blocks of stone were cut to fit together tightly without mortar. Such cutting implements would be known as astra (weapon), in Sanskrit.
In Machu Picchu, the primary archaeological treasures are the Inti Watana, the Temple of the Sun and the Room of the Three Windows. These were dedicated to Inti, their sun God as the greatest deity. Indian heritage of the temple of sun-god in Konarak dates back nearly to the same period and has the same legacy of worship. Above all, at Inti Watana, at midday on November 11 and January 30, the sun stands almost exactly above the pillar, casting no shadow. On June 21, the stone casts the longest shadow on its southern side and on December 21, the shortest shadow on its northern side. Indian observatories in Jaipur and Delhi uncannily replicate similar features.
To return to some of the director's questions, the most apparent deterrent was the seismic activity due to the two surrounding fault-lines. It made mortar and similar building methods nearly useless. Instead, the Incas mined stones from natural quarries at the site, lined them up and shaped them to fit together perfectly, making the buildings sturdier than mortar would. This allowed construction over 200 buildings atop the mountain. As the film showed, Inca walls had many stabilising features: doors and windows were trapezoid, tilting inwards from bottom to top; corners usually were rounded; inside corners often inclined slightly into the rooms; and outside corners were often tied together by l-shaped blocks.
Another deterrent was the heavy rainfall. To drain rainwater and prevent mud slides, landslides, erosion and flooding, terraces were layered with stone-chips, sand, dirt and top soil, to soak water in and prevent it from running down the mountain. Similar layering protected the large city centre from flooding. The Incas never used the wheel in a practical way, although its use in toys showed that they knew its principle. Its use in engineering might have been impractical due to lack of strong draft animals, the steep terrain and dense vegetation. They probably moved the enormous stones rolling over rounded pebbles, but the general belief is that they also used hundreds of men to push the stones up inclined planes. Interestingly, a few stones had knobs that could have been used to lever them into position. To this Indian visitor, a mystical solution to the supreme engineering marvel was offered by the air-hostess who was seen crossing herself earnestly when the tourists’ helicopter took off from Cusco. Though the latter — the nearest inhabited place — was barely 80 km away from Machu Picchu, its 11,000-feet height was hidden completely by forbidding mountain-scarps all along the flight-path, jutting into the sky.
The worthy maiden confided, “Our New Age Andean cosmologists believe that aliens once inhabited the Cusco region and were responsible for building Machu Picchu’s grand architecture. We Peruvians privately cherish this view.” For the UNESCO-recognised world-heritage site and the most-frequented latin American wonder, who knows how it came into being!
By Utpal K Banerjee