Peru Inca citadel Machu Picchu: Hitching Post of the Sun, Sun God September 22, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cuzco, Destination, Encyclopedia, Geographic, Library, Map, Museum, Tour, Travelling Bag , 3commentsMachu Picchu was an Inca citadel, located a little over 60 miles (97km) ….. north of Cuzco. Its ruins occupy a topographical saddle about 8,000 feet (2,400km) up in the Andes between the peaks of Machu (old) Picchu and Huayna (new) Picchu. It is a complex of cultivation terraces, stone houses, temples, plazas and residential compounds clinging to the ridge, on three sides of which are vertiginous drops, overhanging the gorge of the Urubamba River about 2,000 feet (600m) below. The city was discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham of Yale University, whose reports and photographs captured the public imagination. (more…)
Disappeared Inca Empire Supremacy CUZCO part 3 September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Cuzco, Egypt, India, Map, Sydney, Tickets, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, Zanzibar , 2commentsAre ceques therefore astronomical? That is part, but only part, of the answer. The chroniclers relate that the Incas had observatories with windows through which they watched points on the horizon, and they also mention sets of towers at various positions along the skyline as viewed from Cuzco, which were used to indicate timings for planting various crops either at Cuzco or at higher elevations up the valley sides at key ceremonial times of year. The Spanish totally destroyed these towers, but years of brilliant archive and field detective work by Zuidema and A. F. Aveni has resulted in the positions of the former towers being identified, and the arrangement of ceques ‘on the ground’ being clarified to a great extent. (more…)
Disappeared Inca Empire Supremacy CUZCO part 2 September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cuzco, Encyclopedia, Geographic, Health Insurance, Lodges, Map, Science, Sightseeing, Travel Gear , 3commentsIf Cuzco was the centre of the empire, then the omphalos of Cuzco itself was the Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun. In Inca myth, the spot for this was found by Manco Capac, the first Inca, who was sent to earth to bring civilization. He used a golden rod to test for the correct location, and he knew he had found the spot when the rod disappeared into the ground. (more…)
Disappeared Inca Empire Supremacy CUZCO part 1 September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cars, Chile, Cuzco, Destination, Flight Schedule, Sunblock, The Nile, Travel Clinic, Travellers Cheque , 2commentsMore than merely the capital of the Inca empire, the very name ‘Cuzco‘ in Quechua, the language of the Incas and still spoken today, means navel. It was the navel of the Inca world, the omphalos of their empire which at its height stretched over 2,000 miles (3,200km) from Chile in the south to Colombia in the north. It was both an administrative centre and holy city, and is said to have been conceived in the shape of a puma, with its head at Sacsahuaman, the great fortress of cyclopean stonework on the northern edge of modern Cuzco. (more…)
