Style: March 06, 2020

STYLE | travel 81
Evidence of the astonishing skill of the Inca stonemasons is visible everywhere.
inwards to stabilise them against all-too-frequent earthquakes.
The king had a garden, a private bath and even his own toilet
– the only private facility on the site.
I traced the flawless joins in the rock with my fingers,
wondering what secrets they could reveal about Inca life. If
rocks could talk...
The homes of commoners also had impressive stonework,
but the workmanship was not quite so perfect.
The semicircular Temple of the Sun, next to the king’s house,
is one of the most important structures at Machu Picchu. Inti,
the sun god, was the chief deity of the Inca people. The interior
of the temple is a small space that only priests and nobles were
permitted to enter. At the centre there’s a rock that probably
served as an altar. The windows of the temple are perfectly
aligned to the summer and winter solstices. It was near here we
met the lovely Chilean lady and observed the solar eclipse.
Beneath the temple, there’s a little natural cave that possibly
served as a royal mausoleum, but its true purpose remains a
topic of conjecture, like many of the structures at Machu Picchu.
One of the most sacred places at Machu Picchu is
Intihuatana, known as ‘the Hitching Post of the Sun’, a stone
the Inca believed helped to hold the sun in place and keep it
on its correct path. It was most likely used for astronomical
observations.
The Main or Principal Temple, so named due to its large
size and prominent location on the Sacred Plaza, is where
archaeologists believe large ceremonies would have taken place.
Nearby, the Temple of the Three Windows overlooks the
mountains, with windows aligned to the sunrise.
I traced the flawless joins in the rock
with my fingers, wondering what
secrets they could reveal about Inca
life. If rocks could talk...
Intihuatana stone, or ‘the Hitching Post of the Sun’.