Machu Picchu
Friday, 14th July 2006 by James Turnbull
Machu Picchu, the "Lost City of the Incas", is an ancient ruined city found at the top of a mountain. It was probably built around 1440 and the most impressive thing is that it's all still there, despite being constructed with stones neatly slotted together - there's no mortar of any sort.
You can follow the switchback road all the way down the mountain to the Urubamba River and north east to the little village of Aguas Calientes. The road is named the Hiram Bingham Highway, after the Yale archaeologist who re-discovered this site in 1911 and promptly pinched hundreds of ancient artefacts (Wikipedia.)
Thanks: Sam Tihen, Tim Finnegan, Ignacio, RoyalPineapple, Fher, MaurÃcio R. Maurer, martin e, Quinn Kuiken, Dan T, Tim, fish, Tom Gula & eRez
I just wanted to say this is one of my favorite historical sites in the world, and that it certainly looks a lot different via satellite!
Yeah, ive always been fascinated by this, its cool to see the layout of the city via satelite too. Also, its spelled ‘artifacts’ 🙂
yay someone else pointed stuff out! but technically artefacts is considered a variant spelling of artifact, therefore it is correct. however,you are missing a comma after the “Lost City of the Incas.” ahem.
Well, that’s how I’d spell artefacts, and a dictionary agrees with me. I’m not certain about that comma either.
I can do it too, you know – you’re missing a space after “however,” and ahem should have a capital A. In fact, you’re missing capital letters all over the place 😉
Nah, I’m just kidding, thanks for always pointing this stuff out. You guys are great.
Question: opening in Google Earth, and turning on 3D terrain, the winding path actually seems to cross a relatively FLAT area of mountain… strange for a path with so many switchbacks – anyone know if the terrain is steeper than Google Earth makes it appear?
Not to be a stickler, but unless you add that comma after the “Lost City of the Incas,” the beginning of the sentence (or “Machu Picchu”) becomes pointless. You could say “Machu Picchu is an ancient ruined city” or “The ‘Lost City of the Incas’ is an ancient ruined city” but you can’t say “Machu Picchu, or the ‘Lost City of the Incas,’ is an ancient ruined city” without the extra comma there. Otherwise you introduce a subject you don’t follow through with and leave it cut off, which makes it a big word which I can’t remember at 7:47am. But if you don’t believe me still, I will get out my grammar book later today and prove it to you. I got a degree in English Language and Literature, I’m not a genius but some parts of speech I do happen to know off the top of my head. 😉 (Thank you for pointing out my lack of capitalization and the missing space; however, I regard the lack of capitalization as a stylistic technique considering it was an informal comment. But the missing space was a typo, and thus you appropriately pointed it out. And I hope your comments about artefacts were directed to Matt instead of me, as I stated that artefacts is an acceptable spelling. How come you didn’t fix the missing apostrophes in his comment, hmmm? 😛 Discrimination!)
SpedAngel, I’ve added the comma as you clearly know a little bit more about English language than I do – I bow to your superior knowledge. Yes the artefact comments were directed at Matt.
^–lol
Any other motorcyclists drooling over this road? https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=-13.213825,-72.300521&z=17 (Head North, it gets better as you go. Watch out for land slides!) 😀
http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/peru/images/Machu_Picchu_Road_H.jpg
Ben
this shows the degree of slope pretty well. My dad has been there he said the locals chew cocaine leaves I think it was to help with the altitude adjustment.
Hey Ben, actually that path you’re talking about is a road (the only) that goes up a mountain from the town to the ruins, it’s not flat at all, google made a mistake there with the terrain, and it takes 35 minutes because of all of the zig-zag… it’s perfectly appreciated in the pic Brandon submitted. And Brandon that leaves you’re talking about are COCA (not cocaine) leaves, OK, cocaine its extract from them leaves but you need kilos of them for one gram of drug… Machu Picchu is great, come and visit it!
SpedAngel, it does not, nor should it, take anything above a high school diploma to know you need a comma there, or the appositive (the part of speech you were trying to think of) is no longer an appositive (redefining the subject). Actually, with out the second comma “Machu Picchu” becomes an interjection (that’s if you want to accept the first form of the sentence as grammatically correct in the first place) that, as you put it, makes no sense.
And I’m only a sophomore in college studying history.
We have a site on machu picchu and I’d be curious if its possible to connect the google maps with our virtual tours. This would make for a really interesting way of navigating. Any advice or people at googlesightseeing interested in collaborating? http://www.destination360.com/peru/machu-picchu.php
It’s artefacts in australia and by the way this is very good for my assignment of artefacts from Machu Picchu and the Andes Mountains.
Machu Picchu is a “must see”, perhaps the most magic place on Earth, in fact I cannot imagine anything more beautiful.
I’d certainly visit the “Old Peak” and spend at least 5 hours up there!
It’s a shame that massive tourism is destrying it, though. I guess they should take some extra measures like rising entrance fees or something.
hihihihihhihiihihihhihihihiih machu picchu
i love machu picchu