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库斯科画派 · Public domain
Inca Empire · 15th century
Pachacuti
Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui · Peru
Ninth Sapa Inca
He turned the small kingdom of Cusco into the Inca Empire, beginning three generations of expansion that carried Inca rule from the Cusco valley across a vast area of western South America. Most archaeologists believe Machu Picchu was built as his royal estate.
Where the story happened
Los lugares que dejó
Historia · Machu Picchu
The mountain estate of an Inca emperor
Machu Picchu was built around 1450; archaeologists generally believe it was a royal estate ordered by the Inca ruler Pachacuti after he conquered the Urubamba valley, though no contemporary written records confirm this. The Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga had been there in the early 20th century, and the American historian Hiram Bingham's reports in 1911 made it world-famous. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1983.
Leyenda · Sacsayhuamán
The head of the puma city
According to Inca oral history recorded in Spanish chronicles, Pachacuti called Cusco the 'city of the lion' (usually understood as the puma): the meeting of two rivers was its tail, the great square and surrounding houses its body, but it lacked a head. His son Túpac Inca later decided to build a fortress on the heights north of the city as the finest head for this puma — Saksaywaman.
