Short History Of... - Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail

Episode Date: July 17, 2022

Covering thousands of miles in the Andes, the Inca Trail was the backbone of the ancient empire, connecting the millions of people who lived under its rule. The jewel in its crown, Machu Picchu, was recently named one of the seven wonders of the modern world. But who were the Incas? What was the purpose of their complex road system? And why did they build a stone citadel on a mountain ridge, only to abandon it a century later?  This is a Short History of Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail. Written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Javier Puente, associate professor of Latin American studies at Smith College in Massachusetts. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is July the 24th, 1911. A brisk winter morning in the Andes mountains of Peru. A boy is sitting on the stone steps of his home, eating a bowl of quinoa porridge, when he looks up to see a group of strangers approaching. He calls to his father, who comes out to greet the visitors. They are offered water as they get down from their mules. As the men talk, the child is fascinated by one man in particular. He stands a whole head taller than the others. He wears boots up to the knees.

His face is smooth and pointed like an orchid, and burned just as pink. The sun in the highlands is intense, even in winter. The tall man gives his name as Hiram Bingham. He is from the United States of America, he says. He is asking about ancient buildings. Is there somewhere nearby that could have once been a city? The boy's father points into the cloud- fringed hills that loom over the village. There are ruins high in the forest, he says. Farmers live up there, where they can grow crops in solitude without paying taxes or being conscripted into the army. The stranger, excited now, asks to be shown the way, and he's offering money.

The boy goes over, eager to oblige. The hike into the cloud forest will be chilly and wet, but the boy likes an adventure. He pulls his woolen blanket around his shoulders and sets off right away along a path besides the Urubamba River. a path besides the Urubamba River. Bingham stays close to his young guide, ducking under low-hanging ferns and sidestepping snakes. After a climb, he pauses to unpack his Kodak 3A special camera, stretching its black concertina to adjust the focus. If he finds the lost city of the Incas, the National Geographic magazine will publish these photographs. Finding the mountain citadel where the Incas held out against the invading Spanish conquistadors could make his career. Bingham is already drafting his description of

this valley in his head. The way it combines the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies with the beauty of his homeland of Hawaii. There are snowy peaks, granite precipices, foaming rapids. The trees are fringed with a hanging garden of orchids. He gets his shot and they resume hiking. After two more hours of climbing into the steaming forest, Bingham is sweating through his hat and worried that there are no ruins after all. But the boy scampers ever upwards,

sure-footed on the paved road. Soon the boy stops and points. Clouds swirl around them. Bingham makes out neat terraces hemmed in by stone walls. Patches of maize, sugar cane, and sweet potatoes seem to be suspended over the valley. The river is a silvery thread some two thousand feet below. Together they push through a thicket of bamboo. They part the undergrowth to reveal buildings, some of which are occupied by farmers.

Bingham runs his fingers over the stones. White granite, each block hewn perfectly to slot together without mortar. The boy points to the nearest peak and says, Machu Picchu. In the local Quechua language, that means old peak. Opposite is Huayna Picchu, or new peak. The site lies on a plateau between the two hills. The site lies on a plateau between the two hills. Although most of the ruins are hidden under brush and creepers, Bingham makes out lines of stones running like veins under the skin of vegetation. But the light is poor.

It's drizzling and he cannot pull back enough greenery to get a good photograph. He takes a few shots, but he's's already disappointed the scene isn't as dramatic as other south american sites like the mayan temples covered in vines and fig roots this place is harder to convey in a single image in his journal he writes a few scant words houses streets stairs finely cut stone soon hiram bingham has seen enough the following day he bids farewell to his young guide and moves on down the trail through the valley It is not the lost city of the Incas, and that is his holy grail. The American explorer spends a couple of hours at Machu Picchu on that first visit. Less time than the average tourist takes to walk around the ruins today. Later, he does find the last stronghold of the Incas in an area

called Bilcabamba, some 25 miles up river. But something about Machu Picchu's misty ruin calls to him, and a year on Bingham is back. And this time he reveals secrets that are so extraordinary the National Geographic dedicates an entire edition to the site. Almost a century later, in 2007, Machu Picchu is named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. But who were the Incas? What was the purpose of their complex road system?

Why did they build a stone citadel on a mountain ridge almost 2,500 meters above sea level, only to abandon it a century later? And how did the trail itself contribute to their downfall? I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail. The Inca civilization arises in Peru in the 13th century. Their origins are shrouded in myth and legend.

But the tribe first establishes a capital, Cusco, high in the Andes Mountains. They are animists who worship many deities, headed by Inti, the sun god. The society is tolerant enough to incorporate the native religions of other groups as they expand. By the 15th century, the Incas are the dominant power in a region that stretches 3,000 miles along the Pacific coast of South America. Their influence extends across modern-day Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and inland to parts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia. The Incas

leave no written records, but there are tantalizing hints of a system of communication that is conceptually closer to 21st century computing than to traditional methods of writing. Early one morning, sometime in the 15th century, a young man races along a high ridge of the Andes. He is already at top speed and will need to keep up the pace for another hour. His destination is the Tampu, a staging post where he will hand over his cargo to the next runner. Llama-skin sandals protect his feet. The straps allow his toes to splay and give him stability. A fall at this height could be fatal. This is the toughest leg of his relay, a punishing incline to 4000 meters above sea level.

He is ultra fit and accustomed to the altitude, but still his head swims from lack of oxygen. Soon the trail flattens out as he traverses a plateau known as Wami Wanyuska, or Dead Woman's Pass. Ahead is the mountain in the shape of a recumbent woman that gives this stretch its name. He lifts his pututu, a conch shell that hangs from his belt and sounds a blast. It echoes along the Urubamba valley. Moments later, he hears the reply of a second pututu. As sure-footed as an alpaca, he races down the treacherous slope towards the settlement that lies ahead. The young man is a chaski, a messenger who carries vital communiques across the empire.

It's a job held in great esteem, with each runner forming part of a network that covers thousands of miles of paved paths through the Andes. This web of trails has already existed for centuries by the time of the Incas, who further expand them. These are the veins through which the lifeblood of the Andean people flows. Javier Puente is a historian of the Andes and an associate professor of Latin American studies at Smith College in Massachusetts. Chaskis could travel between 10 to 15 kilometers a day running across the trail. And they would travel these distances up until reaching a point that sometimes received the name of Chaskiwasi, right?

That's sort of the house of the Chaski. And then there, they would deliver orally a message to another Chaski who then would continue their traveling. And with that in mind, you could have the case of a week at most. That's a huge distance, a very vast distance covered in a little amount of time and a really efficient way of delivering messages. As the Incas expand their influence across this vast area of the Andes, they encompass multilingual communities who live hand in hand with nature. They encompass multilingual communities who live hand in hand with nature. The Chaski runners are primarily employed to deliver messages, but without a written language, how do they convey information?

One method is to memorize and to pass on news orally, but that is not always reliable or secure. So the Incas develop a technique that has confounded linguists for centuries, a tangled mystery that remains a riddle. When the Chasqui reaches a Tampu staging post, before he even catches his breath, he hands over a ragged-looking object called a khipu. To the untrained eye it might resemble a woolen garment that has started to unravel, but to the chaski it carries information as effectively as a modern laptop.

A khipu is a system of knotted threads or cords that encode messages. The cords are tied by record keepers, known as khipu kamayus. Every town, village or local ruler has one of these specially trained scribes, usually the son of a highborn noble. The Kipu Kamayo is the only one who knows how to decipher their particular code of knots and threads. In this way, the secrets of the Incas are effectively encrypted as they are passed from hand to hand over the mountains. There is some substantial research that has been done on these systems of knotted cords.

Perhaps the most advanced theory about these knots is that they constituted a form of mnemonic device intended to record more than just accountable information. Sometimes it seems they could record narrative information. And the capacity for these knots to record this narrative information as a mnemonic device is based on some form of binary system for knotting these cords. The challenge for decoding these kipus is that there was no standard so every single quipu camayoc would have kept their own form of code for knotting these cords there was no standard so one quipu camayoc could only read what they record in their own quipus but apparently all of them did it with this binary system in mind

Apparently all of them did it with this binary system in mind. The use of quipus predates the Incas. And their secrets are still being unpicked. But whatever their exact purpose, the quipu are vital to an expanding empire that governs its far-flung territories with a firm bureaucratic grip. The Incas have no form of money, no marketplace, no traders. This quirk of their society has led to the understanding that the quipu can function as simple counting devices, with the knots on the cords acting like beads on an abacus. They are used by the Incas to record taxes.

If the knots face one way, the tax has been paid. If the knots face the other way, the payment is still due. But the knot work also records births and marriages. The Kipu help administrate warehouses, where manual laborers are paid for their work with produce rather than coins. But research has shown that elaborate kipu are more complex than early ledgers. Every detail conveys meaning to the scribe, from the color of the threads, the type of the knot, the texture of the fibers. Is the cord made from alpaca wool or camel hair or cotton? It all has

meaning. Decoding the khipu requires a shift of mindset away from languages based on phonetics or alphabets to something three-dimensional. The readers of khipu must use their fingers as well as their eyes. They feel as well as see and hear the messages that are tied up in the knots. The Incas are expert at harnessing pre-existing technologies, such as khipu and paved roads. But they also have the ambition to expand the boundaries of their world. The Incas probably emerged somewhere around the 1300s,

mid-14th century. They might reach their peak around the mid-15th century, around 1438. And they were one of the prevailing, dominant pre-Columbian civilizations in the age of conquest and colonization. The Inca have come to provide to Peru and other Andean countries a sense of a classic past,

a sense of like that distant imperial legacy that, say, Rome and Greece provide to European nation states. Peru sometimes claims this label of being the land of the Incas. But what I want to stress, it is just one last short-lived episode in a much, much longer and deeper history of civilization-making. The Incan civilization calls itself Tawantinsuyu, which means the realm of four parts. This suggests that what becomes known as the Inca Empire was in fact a union of four separate provinces. Some scholars question the claim that the Incas can be defined as an empire at all. Yes, their capital city of Cusco

is home to monumental structures that display their might and power. Fortresses, palaces, the magnificent Temple of the Sun. Also, their dominion encompasses some 10 million people who pay tributes to their ruler via a feudal system.

And there are thousands of miles of paved paths through the Andes, reminiscent of the Roman roads built by that imperial force a thousand years earlier. But other aspects of imperialism are conspicuously absent from the Incas. Notably, any chronicles of violent invasion and military rule. Any chronicles of violent invasion and military rule? The core of the Inca civilization, meaning a handful of quote-unquote royal families that were originally from Cusco, did not aim for cultural homogenization, but instead for the agglomeration of different regional and local cultures and practices and the acceptance of some Cusco

sets of beliefs. They did not have, to the best of our knowledge, a strong military branch that could facilitate a forceful military expansion. In fact, they had some longstanding rivalries with people in the north, in the near vicinity of the central Sierra, for instance, the Chanca people. And they also had a longstanding rivalry with Mapuche in the south that could never come to a resolution, largely because of lack of military strength. That if we were talking about an empire in the most sort of classic definition of empire, they might have exhibited. One area where the Incas do dominate is in their command of their unique environment. The Inca Trail connects the heartland of what is now Peru

with remote outposts as far away as modern-day Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina. with remote outposts as far away as modern-day Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina. Whereas Roman roads are famously straight, to allow efficient movement, the mountainous landscape of the Inca Trail is more complex. It is impossible to move in a direct line when it is necessary to navigate both horizontal and vertical routes. But this is the only way to bring together people who are scattered across mountains. So life in the Andes in the 15th century

gravitated or revolved around the mastery of verticality and the capacity that any civilization that wanted to claim some form of permanence among other civilizations had to exhibit itself as the ultimate tamer, the ultimate dominator of this verticality. And I think that is exactly what the Incas did. Something that baffles contemporary observers of the Inca Trail is how intricate and seemingly pointless some of these routes seem to be. Some of these routes go around hills and down to rivers and down to valleys and then back up, don't quite make sense. They only make sense insofar as we go back to the principle of

verticality and we go back to this idea, the vertical archipelago. This seemingly endless, small, highly specialized ecological and sociopolitical niches that not only needed a centralizing force, but also connectivity throughout them so that populations could circulate, so that production could circulate, but perhaps more importantly so that information and power itself could circulate. And so the creation of this, the existence of this Inca Trail was ultimately one of the most imperial features of this civilization. It was a principle of cultural cohesion and a principle of kinship. That is a principle that because we were one single culture,

we could be one single family, we needed to stay connected as such. So these Inca trails were a system created to foster interactions across the vertical archipelago that constituted the backbone of Andean civilizations since pre-Incan times, actually to the present. By the 15th century, the Incas dominate 3,000 miles of the eastern seaboard. They expand by using diplomatic means to bring local communities into the Incan state. Their empire spreads and grows without the use of the wheel, money,

draft animals, or iron and steel. The Inca Trail crisscrosses a vast territory. When it is necessary to ford rivers or canyons, they construct suspension bridges made from woven tufts of ichu grass. Bridges are maintained by local villagers, who perform repairs as part of their tax debt. It is dangerous work, though, retying the cables with fresh ropes. Some workers fall to their deaths in gorges or freezing rivers. But they do whatever is necessary to keep human traffic moving on the Inca Trail. And that helps the empire to thrive. In its singular form, Inca means emperor or king, though the ruler of the Incas was often called the Sapa Inca, meaning the only king.

The Incan people believe their ruler is a direct descendant of the head deity, Inti, meaning the ruler is considered son of the sun. considered son of the sun. The Incan civilization reaches its peak with a ruler called Pachacutec, the ninth Sapa Inca. Pachacutec gathered a great deal of prestige and power as a result of leading the defense of the Incas against a Chanka invasion. Chankas are a people north of Cusco in the

Mantaro Valley in the contemporary Peruvian central sierra, which led an expedition and a campaign against Incas to try to seize Cusco. And Pachacutec was the leader of Inca resistance and successfully resisted Chanka invasion. The Chankas, by the way, are also the population that will ally with the Spaniards later on to contribute to the downfall of the Incas. Upon successfully defending Cusco from the Chancas invasion, Pachacute leads a campaign of expansion, reorganizing Cusco, rebuilding Cusco, building much of the monumental structures that still stand in Cusco City,

developing equally monumental projects across the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba River, and ultimately building Machu Picchu in the frontier of the highlands and Amazon jungle. Pachacutec is not destined to be king. That honor is due to go to his brother, but his military prowess allows him to seize the throne. He soon proves himself a worthy leader. It is he who leaves the lasting legacy that we now call one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

legacy that we now call one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Pachacutec seemingly ruled the Andes between 1418 and 1472. So it's the pinnacle of Inca civilization and Inca expansion. And I think most ethno-historians coincide that it's the one Inca, the first Inca, for whom we have documented evidence of his existence. And sometimes some ethno-historians have used the term, it's the first historical Inca, making probably all the eight Incas before him more sort of like a mythical condition. It is the year 1420, a hot day in the dry season. The sun floods over two men, both panting with exertion as they finish a long climb. They have emerged onto a construction site. One of the men, the foreman, invites his guest to drink from a stone fountain that stands in the centre of a cleared patch of land. The view from up here is a vista of green

peaks and jungled valleys. The fountain is incongruous, but very welcome on this hot day. The other man, a stonemason, refreshes himself after the long hike to the site. As he drinks, he looks along the length of a canal that disappears into the surrounding vegetation. The foreman explains the groundworks that are already being laid. The natural spring here never runs dry. The water is being collected by an elaborate system of walls and trenches that channel it along a watercourse that measures 750 paces. The stonemason wipes his mouth.

The water is cool and delicious, and the engineering is impressive. But what about the wet season? This site is perched on a saddle between two hills, and this whole region suffers earthquakes and landslides. The kind of deluge seen in the Andes could wash the whole construction down the side of the mountain. could wash the whole construction down the side of the mountain. The foreman directs the stonemason to an area of terracing, where work is already underway. This is where they will plant crops.

But it has another function. The terrace creates drainage and prevents erosion of the soil. Even discharge from washing and bathing will run off into the rainforest below, so the dirty water doesn't foul the drinking supply. Fresh water and drainage are key to the success of this construction site. The stonemason is satisfied. So, where is he to build the palace? Pachacutec, he is told, will live beside the main fountain, for access to the best and freshest of the water. The foreman shows him around the site, pointing out where they will need to construct a temple and other buildings to house the ruler's court and servants. There is a detailed town plan, all held in the foreman's head. As they walk, the stonemason can picture it too. He is an expert in the ashla style of construction, working with blocks of granite. His craftsmen will shape and polish the rocks until they slot together perfectly, lying side by side like teeth.

He assures the foreman that when it's finished, he won't be able to poke a fingernail between the stones. Thanks to his architecture, these houses will withstand ground tremors and wet seasons for years to come. and wet seasons for years to come. The builders of Machu Picchu face fearsome engineering challenges. The problem of water supply is resolved by the natural source and ingenious canals. But the workforce need to gain access to the peak, hiking up from the valley below. Crucially, they must source enough rocks to chisel thousands of building blocks. Although the Incas perhaps don't understand the technicalities of geology as we do today,

they certainly have an intricate knowledge of their landscape. The proposed site of the new town lies between two fault lines. The movement of the earth in times past has shattered the two peaks of Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu. Seismic activity has caused the mountains to crack, an area of land called a graben to depress, and the rocky substructure to break apart. It means the builders can quarry and work the stone on site. They effectively mine the building blocks of Machu Picchu from the crest of the hill. One of the questions that is often intriguing and baffling

for both researchers and contemporary observers is the location of Machu Picchu. Why was it built in such distant spots? That requires us, once again, to step back and say, well, what is the purpose of building this? And why do we consider this to be inaccessible? Just because it's inaccessible to us, right? Machu Picchu was built on the axis, on the frontier between the highlands and the Amazon basin.

Life in the Amazon basin just is completely different to life anywhere else. It requires, among other things, nomadism and mobility to be the norm, not sedentarianism. So how do you rule peoples and places that are constantly on the move? But the exuberance, the colors, the seemingly different products, so attractive to every single sense back then and still nowadays.

Feathers, fruits, new crops, new flavors was so distinctly attractive that I think it makes complete sense to build this display of power and put your royal family at the very frontier of this place, hence exhibiting an ambition but also marking a presence in a proximity of a place that is equally attractive and unruly to Inca eyes as it is for contemporary eyes. As a show of power and prowess, Machu Picchu is unsurpassed. It is not just the location that impresses visitors. It is the monumental scale of the Citadel in the sky. Beside the palace, the craftsmen construct the Temple of the Sun, an observatory and place of worship. This is the only curved building at Machu Picchu, built atop a natural boulder that serves as a foundation. Inside the city walls are a

further 170 buildings. The construction is standardized. Almost every window is the width of a forearm and the spaces between them are double that. Although the Incas have no written plans, they carry a blueprint in the mind. It is estimated that 60% of the construction work lies below the surface, deep foundations with tons of crushed rock to allow drainage. Most of the engineering cannot be seen to be appreciated. But the fact that the ruins are still standing proves the presence of technology that functions just as well now

as when the builders imagined it some 600 years ago. There is also a man-made pyramid, built of layered terraces that are stacked up like the tears of a wedding cake. At the apex of this mound is a large stone known as the Inti Watana, a kind of sundial that aligns with Waianapichu Hill on the summer and winter solstices, demonstrating a deep understanding of astronomy. Elsewhere, inside the Temple of the Sun, a sacred stone has been illuminated by dawn rays on the 21st of June every year for the last half millennium.

In the decades after the site became famous to the world outside the Andes, there is great speculation about the purpose of Machu Picchu. When Bingham's excavations unearth skeletons that are originally thought to be female, he concludes that the site was a convent for the Virgins of the Sun God, a prestigious sect. But that theory is discounted when further investigation shows the remains to be both male and female. Over the years, scholars suggest Machu Picchu is a prison or a ceremonial coronation site. Others speculate it was a trading hub or an agrarian testing station for new crops, such as the potatoes and quinoa that are indigenous to Peru but now popular worldwide. Some even theorize that Machu Picchu is a physical incarnation of the Incan creation

myth. Legend has it that the sun god Inti ordered the early Incas to descend under the earth to follow a subterranean path from Lake Titicaca near the southern tip of what is now Peru. The ancestors then ascended into the light more than 200 miles away, near the royal city of Cusco. So maybe there is symbolism in the pilgrimage along the treacherous Inca Trail, through the tunnel-like darkness of the cloud forest and emergence onto a summit at Machu Picchu. Here, via the magnificent Sun Gate, pilgrims would recreate the experience of their forebears by stepping into the light.

Many visitors to Machu Picchu do report a spiritual response to the site. But it is likely that its original function is more simple. A chance for the Incan elite to get away from the hustle and bustle of Cusco. It was just a royal estate for the tranquility of the income. That said, probably the populations who lived there as temporary laborers and taxpayers rotated, so it was not sort of like indentured servitude for the 750 people who lived there.

While it may sound questionable to have these laborers that are paying tribute to the central polity, we probably think that it was in fact something that communities look forward to. They look forward to sending their populations to serve in this royal estate for then revitalizing and regenerating the principles of kinship and reciprocity that exists between the central polity and a local village. And so that population of Yanakonas did rotate on some form of temporary basis, making a number of different communities able to render their tribute to the royal estate, to a royal family, to a very prestigious and power-holding family,

and hence gaining something from that tribute-paying scheme. Just like the villagers who pay tribute by maintaining bridges along the Inca Trail, there are thousands of workers who come from every corner of the empire to work on its finest monument. It means that Machu Picchu is not just a royal estate or a symbol of the ruler's power, but also a national project that brings its people together. I have visited Machu Picchu about 10 times, I think.

And this looks like a nice spa, right? This looks like a nice place where you just can retreat yourself and just stay for a vacation, right? But besides that, it's sort of like a more academic reflection. I think Machu Picchu was in many ways a sensorial experience for those who live there and those who visited it. In terms of the number of unique things that converged in Machu Picchu in its heyday, from the technological achievement, the technological pinnacle that was reached in Machu Picchu and building Machu Picchu itself, to the number of agrarian resources that probably were available from people living in Machu Picchu, to the incredible experience of witnessing the Amazon rainforest just next to you, to the unique

nature and environment that surrounded you at the time. You know, Machu Picchu presents a climate, a weather that is completely different to what happens in Cusco City. Much more tropical, very exuberant, warmer than Cusco City, and, you know, almost sort of like permanently green all the time. So in its heyday, Machu Picchu was a sensorial, comprehensive experience of a thousand years of civilization-making and technological development and agrarian developments in the Andes. It is 1524 in a village high in the Andes. Everyone has turned out to witness a historic moment.

In recent weeks, villagers have received reports from the Chaski runners that the emperor is dead. His name was Wayna Kapak and he was the grandson of the great Pachacutec who built Machu Picchu. The death of the 11th Sapa Inca has come as a shock. Middle-aged and healthy, the king had recently returned from fighting rebels in the northern territories. The king had recently returned from fighting rebels in the Northern Territories. Now, he is making his final journey of almost 2,000 miles from Quito to Cusco, before being laid to rest with his mummified ancestors. There is a somber atmosphere as the royal court, or panaca, makes its way along the Inca Trail.

A pututu conch shell sounds a melancholy sigh. Soon the funerary convoy approaches and the villagers lower their heads. The body sits upright, as though still alive. Huayna Capac has been prepared with great ceremony. His heart was removed and left in Quito, his favorite town, which is in the north of the empire, in modern-day Ecuador. There, his remains were mummified, dressed in luxurious robes, and adorned with a headdress of colorful feathers and pieces of gold. As the procession reaches the first bystanders, a toddler shouts out at the extraordinary sight. The boy's mother drags him away before he can disrupt the solemn occasion.

Little does she know, her son may have just saved her life. Because many people believe that Wynna Kappak's sudden death can be explained by a virus that is spreading through the Americas like wildfire. Smallpox. First introduced to the continent by European colonialists in the Caribbean, the disease has arrived on the mainland and is moving rapidly south. If the panaka has been exposed to the fatal disease too, then this pilgrimage could spread the virus the length of the Inca Trail.

Certainly smallpox and other diseases like measles and mumps do spread through the empire. After the arrival of the virus in the 1520s, the Incan civilization is decimated. Although no reliable records exist, it is estimated that 90% of the indigenous population across the Americas is wiped out by European diseases over the remainder of the 16th century. The eldest son of Huayna Capac dies a few years after his father, also probably from smallpox. A power vacuum puts the Incan Empire in the hands of two other sons, whose sibling rivalry leads to civil war. By the time the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro arrives on the shores of Peru in 1526, the empire is in disarray. the empire is in disarray. In the grip of both a pandemic and vicious infighting,

the foreign conquerors, better known as conquistadors, are able to seize an empire the size of Spain with a force of only 168 men. It is during this tumultuous decade, the 1520s, that Machu Picchu is abandoned. In the case of Machu Picchu, the quote-unquote abandonment also happened in the eve of conquest and colonization. In a moment in which elsewhere in the Andes, there was a crisis already unfolding as a result of an arrival that preceded the arrival of conquistadors themselves and that is the arrival of European viruses and bacterias and diseases that ravaged the Americas that came from the Caribbean Basin from the earlier outpost of colonial domination into mainland Americas, to Panama first, and then down south

to the Andes, and apparently were responsible of the death of Huayna Capac, one of the last Incas who seemingly fell victim of smallpox roughly around the early decades of the 16th century. And that particular experience of conquest and colonization, beyond the human cost of demographic decimation, also signaled a major cultural crisis for all Andean populations, not just the Incas. Perhaps there are simply not enough manual laborers left alive to maintain Machu Picchu. Perhaps the political turmoil leaves little opportunity for the elites to visit their peaceful mountain retreat.

Or perhaps the sudden arrival of disease and conquistadors means that the people of the Andes no longer believe in the divine power of their emperor to protect them. One way or another, the sun sets on the Sapa Inca. The recent experience of the pandemic can give us a sense of what happens when we cannot really control the means of death in a community that also, like the global community these days,

seem to believe that they are in control of everything. The Incas, the people who constituted the Aztecs, they were the masters of their time. They controlled the weather, sense of climate, they watched the stars and could predict harvest season and had built roads and had built hydraulic infrastructure. And yet there is this something that they have no explanation for, hence triggering a major cultural crisis. No one knows exactly what happens next at Machu Picchu. Suddenly the town falls into ruin,

the roofs of its buildings slowly succumbing to the elements. Although when the American explorer Hiram Bingham arrives 400 years later, a few houses are thatched and occupied. Perhaps there is a continuous line of farmers who make use of the cutting-edge architecture of the Incas to live peacefully and fruitfully at altitude, and enjoy one of the finest views on the planet. To the outside world, though, the site is largely forgotten. What we do know is, while Spanish conquistadors are raiding and desecrating

other Incan sites after a full-scale invasion in the 1530s, Machu Picchu escapes unscathed. The town may have been strategically important to the Incas, a display of might and mastery over their landscape, but it is too remote and inaccessible to interest the invaders. Even if its location is known to the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro, he is more concerned with chasing Incan rebels through their active strongholds elsewhere in the Andes. Finally, in 1572, the conquistadors put an end to the empire. Tupac Amaru is carried on a mule to Cusco with his hands tied and a noose around his neck.

On a scaffold outside the Cathedral of Santo Domenico in the central square, the last ruler of the Incas is hanged on the 24th of September in front of tens of thousands of mourners. The records of Machu Picchu are lost largely because its location was not perceived as a profitable location for any power that ruled the Andes before the early 20th century. For a colonial state that was so fixated on extracting silver and bringing this silver in the fastest possible way from the core of the southern Andes, from Potosi to Lima and to Lima, from Lima to the world, there was nothing really profitable about reaching Machu Picchu besides perhaps pursuing a fairy tale, something that became more of a fairy tale by that point.

And once the emerging schemes of tourism as a capitalist practice seemed to pose a profitable identity upon Machu Picchu, then Machu Picchu was unveiled to the world and became what it has become now. It is that fairy tale, legends of a golden city like the mythical El Dorado, that prompt foreign explorers to march all over South America in pursuit of wealth and glory. A German adventurer called Augusto Burns makes the treacherous climb to Machu Picchu in 1867. Augusto Burns makes the treacherous climb to Machu Picchu in 1867. Burns buys a plot of land on the opposite mountainside and may have looted the ruins during his visit. But the German is more

interested in trading timber and gold, and for now the site remains a secret. It's not until 40 years later that the outside world first becomes aware of Machu Picchu. After Hiram Bingham III's short visit in 1911, he returns to undertake a full-scale survey. Bingham is not a trained archaeologist, but a professor at Yale University. Having married an heir to the Tiffany's jewelry fortune, Bingham funds his expeditions because he prefers being in the field to being stuck in the classroom. Tall, good-looking, and intrepid, Bingham is thought to be the inspiration for the fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

When he comes to record his account of what he refers to as the discovery of Machu Picchu, account of what he refers to as the discovery of Machu Picchu, he writes in the style of a boy's own adventure, one that appeals to fans of the high-octane fictional tales of the era by Arthur Conan Doyle or Jules Verne. In reality, Bingham's expedition was more about the study of historical documents, negotiating with local officials, and dealing with abundant mosquitoes and insufficient mules. On the page, though, his journey to the stone citadel becomes a tale of daring do on the Inca Trail, as he rushes in where others fear to tread. It seemed like an unbelievable dream, he writes about his first view of the ruins. Surprise followed surprise in bewildering succession.

Many of those surprises are 15th century Incan artifacts, either buried or protected by the ruins. Pottery, bones, stone tools and relics in gold and silver. Bingham packs them all up and ships his plunder to the United States for further study. Thousands of pieces are removed from Machu Picchu, leaving it denuded. There is a very precise register and record of what was found, what was unearthed

and what was brought to the United States, specifically to Yale University. And I think it was a total of 4,000 artifacts, give or take, which the first time I visited Machu Picchu and I heard this story, it was interesting to, you know, something that contributed to my early sense of abandonment is the emptiness of Machu Picchu, right? So it seems that it was, yeah, people pack up things and just left going somewhere else. But that's not the citadel that Hiram Bingham found. He found a city that was full of artifacts. And this early moment of archaeology as an imperial discipline made sure that the later experience of the ruins would add up to this idea of abandonment,

an empty ruin, a ruin that has no material testament of people living, how they live, and how they work, and how they survive on a daily basis in this place. There is no doubt that Bingham's account catches the public imagination. There is no doubt that Bingham's account catches the public imagination. Fascination with the enigmatic Incas grows, and a tourist phenomenon is born in the Andes. Today, some half a million people visit Machu Picchu every year, arriving on foot or by train. It has become so popular that the authorities now strictly limit numbers for the sake of sustainability. Those who walk the Inca Trail still marvel at the skill of the people whose spectacular paved paths cover thousands of miles of the high Andes.

Even the fittest tourists will likely be overtaken by guides and porters who cover the unforgiving terrain at speed, just as the Chaski did. There are many mysteries that remain, Incan stories still to be told. What secrets might come to light when we finally learn to read the three-dimensional messages held in the knots and threads of the puzzling quipu. These narratives that tied together the people of the Inca Trail. So quipus are one of the most interesting and still intriguing and mysterious forms of archaeological evidence that could still store so many secrets and so much history about curriculum and civilizations. We can be steps away from decoding the K'ipu system, but that hasn't

happened yet. So kinship, reciprocity, redistribution, these forms of traditional knowledges, indigenous knowledges that really nourish livelihood in these times may hold something to aid our survival in an age of climate catastrophe. And so there is so much that we can still learn from these civilizations. Next time on Short History Of we'll bring you a short history of the Spartans. I often think about William Golding's line that the Spartans were standing on the right side of history at Thermopylae.

They were. And while you can admire the Spartans for the courageous stand at Thermopylae, when you start to look at other aspects of Spartan society, you can really see that they are far less admirable than that one glorious story suggests. That's next time on Short History Of. If you're enjoying Noisa podcasts, but would like to hear them without adverts, join Noisa Plus today. As well as ad-free listening to Noisa originals, including Real Dictators, Short History Of, and History Daily, you'll get bonus content and early access to new episodes. Join via the Apple Podcast app or head to noisa.com to subscribe on Android and other devices.