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Machu Picchu was purposely built on intersecting fault lines: research (2019)

nkingsy 6y ago
Someone told me these were lost stone working techniques when I visited. This makes so much more sense! The rocks are so large and smooth and fit together so perfectly, it is arrestingly beautiful.
- barbegal 6y ago
  I hate these types of claim. We know roughly what techniques could have been used. The mystery is maybe in why they went to such a great amount of effort. These buildings would have required many decades to construct and involved thousands of workers.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    Yeah, it's a bit like claims that "we don't know how they built the pyramids" and such. There are multiple competing theories. The fact that we don't know, for certain, exactly which one matches what was done thousands of years ago doesn't mean the technique has been "lost." There's no engineering mystery here, just a gap in historical knowledge.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      How the stones of the pyramids were worked is no great mystery. The interesting part is how they were lifted into place. The external-spiral-ramp and one-long-ramp theories both seem extremely unlikely. Internal-ramp seems plausible but isn't yet mainstream.
  - tmn 6y ago
    Care to expand on these techniques?
- pengaru 6y ago
  Since Machu Picchu has been at least partially restored up to an arbitrary level of "ruin-ness", I wonder how much of this impression is due to that vs. the original construction. I have the impression that the place has been optimizing for maximum tourism, not preservation, for some time now.
sixstringtheory 6y ago
Visited there a few years ago. Our guide explained to us that the indentations in the walls, that are like windows that only go halfway through the wall, were earthquake proofing technology. He said it dampened the propagation of shock waves through the rock wall to avoid catastrophic damage. Pretty cool stuff. It’s an incredible place, I wish everyone could go see it with their own eyes, like so many things out there. Sad to see the note of over tourism at the end, and the plans for a new airport. The road less traveled has always appealed to me, but by traveling those roads, I kind of ruin what I like the most. Don’t know how to reconcile that. Like, I loved hearing how the town at the base of Macchu Picchu only allowed bringing in supplies by horse to restrict the development to a reasonable pace. (At least at first–now there’s a train.) But, in the interest of that road less traveled, I’ll throw out a recommendation for the Salkantay trek to get there from Cuzco. It approaches it from the opposite side than the Inca trail. You’ll get less ruins on the way there, but the villages and wilderness were outstanding, not to mention Mt Salkantay.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  off topic: did you feel altitude sickness?
  - sixstringtheory 6y ago
    The pass by Mt Salkantay was just over 15K ft at the highest point. I’d been training in Colorado so didn’t get sick, but definitely felt it! One person in our group did get a bit sick, our guide had him huff some kind of tincture. The coca candies/tea helped a bit as well. Edit to add: the first day in Cuzco is pretty rough though, spent all day lounging and napping. It’s around 11K ft.
  - acrooks 6y ago
    I visited in December 2017 and was worried about altitude sickness, but was quite rushed the days before the trip and didn’t have a chance to get sickness pills from my doctor. I personally didn’t feel any symptoms, and neither did my friends. We’re all active and healthy people in their 20s. The only real impact was reaching a shortness of breath much more quickly: hiking and such was certainly a lot more difficult than I’m used to at sea level. I had the same type of experience ski touring in Colorado; never really feeling satiated from breathing during vigorous activity.
ciguy 6y ago
Machi Picchu was one of the few items on my world travels bucket list that was actually more spectacular and awe-inspiring than expected. Many famous landmarks are nice but kinda just ok when you are up close. Machi Picchu is a whole other category. The trip to get there is a journey itself whether you trek or take the scenic train from Cusco. I tell all my friends that if they only go to one major world landmark before they die, Machu Picchu is a good choice.
- kvgr 6y ago
  I have the same experience and I was there twice... Didnt get less epic. I recommend Peru, Equator and Bolivia to everyone I meet... I also recommend Iguazu, it is not human made but not less epic than M.P.
  - ciguy 6y ago
    I lived in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia for like 6 months each. I've lived in or visited over 100 countries so far and those are still in my top 10 favorites.
- hawk_ 6y ago
  I travelled through the Andes, Amazon rainforest etc... and while it was amazing overall, I wasn't impressed with Machu Pichu. There are way older and better built things all over Asia and Europe.
  - philshem 6y ago
    > There are way older and better built things all over Asia and Europe. Your opinion is valid but in this case because isolated societies developed independently, the “oldness” is somehow relative. My opinion is that MP exceeded my expecations. So did Taj Majal. It’s just something in our personalities.
  - bregma 6y ago
    The alien spacecraft landing area in Nazca, PE, is not all that old but still amazing and worth visiting. I mean, aliens! On Earth!
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
It would be interesting if the mountain that Machu Picchu was built on -- was actually a Pyramid or some other man-made structure at one point in time in earlier history, and if so, if there are possibly any artifacts buried deep underneath...
Pyramus 6y ago
> “It would be impossible to build such a site in the high mountains if the substrate was not fractured." No, that's not what you have demonstrated. Because A is much more likely than B, doesn't mean B is impossible. Maybe I'm pedantic here but I feel this logical fallacy undermines the quality of the researcher's arguments.
- mateus1 6y ago
  If you're intending to disqualify a peer-reviewed study being covered by Smithsonian Mag due to a single sentence then yeah, you're being pedantic.
  - Pyramus 6y ago
    Sorry, did not mean to discredit. What I meant was: The researcher did all this work to build up a chain of arguments to support their hypothesis and then basically says "every other hypothesis is impossible."
philshem 6y ago
A fun read about MP: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-at-machu-picchu https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-at-m...
onyva 6y ago
>> It was discovered by western science in 1911, when Yale professor Hiram Bingham III was tipped off to its existence by locals and led to the site, then overgrown with vegetation. So... it wasn’t “discovered” by western science if it was known to locals all along... why not simply state that western scientist learned or were aided by locals into the site?
- markalexander 6y ago
  I think you're misparsing the sentence. It just means that this is when it first became known to "western science".
  - bregma 6y ago
    No, it's not a mis-parse. It's a justified criticism of racist journalism.
    - markalexander 6y ago
      I'm convinced; the author is clearly a racist because the people in this thread have a poor grasp of the English language. When is his execution?
      - onyva 6y ago
        Hyperbole. The right’s favorite pass time. Also, thinking their grasp of the English language is great. Ie trump being a perfect example. This is about language though. Eurocentrism is about making everything relative to what the west thinks, even when it’s “understanding” is very limited. Like going to explore other cultures and reporting back with authority when there’s plenty of local expertise that should be sourced. Take the theory of decline of the Ottoman Empire as an example to this type of anti-intellectualism, but there so many mistakes to learn from.
        markalexander 6y ago
        The particular sentence in the article is only slightly uncommon in terms of difficulty, so I don't really see how I've implied that my English is 'great'. Passable, maybe. We might have different standards. Nice high-brow segue from "you're obviously a Trump supporter" to "civilisation is in decline due to anti-intellectualism", though. Hint: I'm British. Talk about ethnocentrism. I'm not really sure how I can constructively help you with the sentence in question without literally parsing the tokens for you and identifying the parts of speech, objects, subjects, etc. Seems like that would be a waste of time, given you've already arrived at your own immutable conclusions.
bregma 6y ago
The trouble in that part of the world would be finding a place to build that isn't on a fault line.
stevespang 6y ago
Been there, magical place. There are likely gravitational and electromagnetic anomalies where fault lines meet.
ufo 6y ago
For those who understand Portuguese, Prof. Menegat recently appeared on the Fronteiras da Ciência podcast to talk about this work: http://multimidia.ufrgs.br/conteudo/frontdaciencia/Fronteiras_da_Ciencia-T11E12-25.05.2020.mp3 http://multimidia.ufrgs.br/conteudo/frontdaciencia/Fronteira...
rossdavidh 6y ago
"Today, it faces very modern threats including overtourism, a problem that will only be exasperated by plans for a new airport in the region." ...I don't think that's what "exasperated" means. The author may have been exasperated that the problem is likely to be exacerbated by the building of the airport, though.
- thomascgalvin 6y ago
  He must have meant "exacerbated."

Someone told me these were lost stone working techniques when I visited. This makes so much more sense! The rocks are so large and smooth and fit together so perfectly, it is arrestingly beautiful.

barbegal 6y ago
I hate these types of claim. We know roughly what techniques could have been used. The mystery is maybe in why they went to such a great amount of effort. These buildings would have required many decades to construct and involved thousands of workers.
- garmaine 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a bit like claims that "we don't know how they built the pyramids" and such. There are multiple competing theories. The fact that we don't know, for certain, exactly which one matches what was done thousands of years ago doesn't mean the technique has been "lost." There's no engineering mystery here, just a gap in historical knowledge.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    How the stones of the pyramids were worked is no great mystery. The interesting part is how they were lifted into place. The external-spiral-ramp and one-long-ramp theories both seem extremely unlikely. Internal-ramp seems plausible but isn't yet mainstream.
- tmn 6y ago
  Care to expand on these techniques?
pengaru 6y ago
Since Machu Picchu has been at least partially restored up to an arbitrary level of "ruin-ness", I wonder how much of this impression is due to that vs. the original construction. I have the impression that the place has been optimizing for maximum tourism, not preservation, for some time now.

sixstringtheory 6y ago

Visited there a few years ago. Our guide explained to us that the indentations in the walls, that are like windows that only go halfway through the wall, were earthquake proofing technology. He said it dampened the propagation of shock waves through the rock wall to avoid catastrophic damage. Pretty cool stuff. It’s an incredible place, I wish everyone could go see it with their own eyes, like so many things out there. Sad to see the note of over tourism at the end, and the plans for a new airport. The road less traveled has always appealed to me, but by traveling those roads, I kind of ruin what I like the most. Don’t know how to reconcile that. Like, I loved hearing how the town at the base of Macchu Picchu only allowed bringing in supplies by horse to restrict the development to a reasonable pace. (At least at first–now there’s a train.) But, in the interest of that road less traveled, I’ll throw out a recommendation for the Salkantay trek to get there from Cuzco. It approaches it from the opposite side than the Inca trail. You’ll get less ruins on the way there, but the villages and wilderness were outstanding, not to mention Mt Salkantay.

onetimemanytime 6y ago
off topic: did you feel altitude sickness?
- sixstringtheory 6y ago
  The pass by Mt Salkantay was just over 15K ft at the highest point. I’d been training in Colorado so didn’t get sick, but definitely felt it! One person in our group did get a bit sick, our guide had him huff some kind of tincture. The coca candies/tea helped a bit as well. Edit to add: the first day in Cuzco is pretty rough though, spent all day lounging and napping. It’s around 11K ft.
- acrooks 6y ago
  I visited in December 2017 and was worried about altitude sickness, but was quite rushed the days before the trip and didn’t have a chance to get sickness pills from my doctor. I personally didn’t feel any symptoms, and neither did my friends. We’re all active and healthy people in their 20s. The only real impact was reaching a shortness of breath much more quickly: hiking and such was certainly a lot more difficult than I’m used to at sea level. I had the same type of experience ski touring in Colorado; never really feeling satiated from breathing during vigorous activity.

ciguy 6y ago

Machi Picchu was one of the few items on my world travels bucket list that was actually more spectacular and awe-inspiring than expected. Many famous landmarks are nice but kinda just ok when you are up close. Machi Picchu is a whole other category. The trip to get there is a journey itself whether you trek or take the scenic train from Cusco. I tell all my friends that if they only go to one major world landmark before they die, Machu Picchu is a good choice.

kvgr 6y ago
I have the same experience and I was there twice... Didnt get less epic. I recommend Peru, Equator and Bolivia to everyone I meet... I also recommend Iguazu, it is not human made but not less epic than M.P.
- ciguy 6y ago
  I lived in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia for like 6 months each. I've lived in or visited over 100 countries so far and those are still in my top 10 favorites.
hawk_ 6y ago
I travelled through the Andes, Amazon rainforest etc... and while it was amazing overall, I wasn't impressed with Machu Pichu. There are way older and better built things all over Asia and Europe.
- philshem 6y ago
  > There are way older and better built things all over Asia and Europe. Your opinion is valid but in this case because isolated societies developed independently, the “oldness” is somehow relative. My opinion is that MP exceeded my expecations. So did Taj Majal. It’s just something in our personalities.
- bregma 6y ago
  The alien spacecraft landing area in Nazca, PE, is not all that old but still amazing and worth visiting. I mean, aliens! On Earth!

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

It would be interesting if the mountain that Machu Picchu was built on -- was actually a Pyramid or some other man-made structure at one point in time in earlier history, and if so, if there are possibly any artifacts buried deep underneath...

Pyramus 6y ago

> “It would be impossible to build such a site in the high mountains if the substrate was not fractured." No, that's not what you have demonstrated. Because A is much more likely than B, doesn't mean B is impossible. Maybe I'm pedantic here but I feel this logical fallacy undermines the quality of the researcher's arguments.

mateus1 6y ago
If you're intending to disqualify a peer-reviewed study being covered by Smithsonian Mag due to a single sentence then yeah, you're being pedantic.
- Pyramus 6y ago
  Sorry, did not mean to discredit. What I meant was: The researcher did all this work to build up a chain of arguments to support their hypothesis and then basically says "every other hypothesis is impossible."

philshem 6y ago

A fun read about MP: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-at-machu-picchu https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-at-m...

onyva 6y ago

>> It was discovered by western science in 1911, when Yale professor Hiram Bingham III was tipped off to its existence by locals and led to the site, then overgrown with vegetation. So... it wasn’t “discovered” by western science if it was known to locals all along... why not simply state that western scientist learned or were aided by locals into the site?

markalexander 6y ago
I think you're misparsing the sentence. It just means that this is when it first became known to "western science".
- bregma 6y ago
  No, it's not a mis-parse. It's a justified criticism of racist journalism.
  - markalexander 6y ago
    I'm convinced; the author is clearly a racist because the people in this thread have a poor grasp of the English language. When is his execution?
    - onyva 6y ago
      Hyperbole. The right’s favorite pass time. Also, thinking their grasp of the English language is great. Ie trump being a perfect example. This is about language though. Eurocentrism is about making everything relative to what the west thinks, even when it’s “understanding” is very limited. Like going to explore other cultures and reporting back with authority when there’s plenty of local expertise that should be sourced. Take the theory of decline of the Ottoman Empire as an example to this type of anti-intellectualism, but there so many mistakes to learn from.
      - markalexander 6y ago
        The particular sentence in the article is only slightly uncommon in terms of difficulty, so I don't really see how I've implied that my English is 'great'. Passable, maybe. We might have different standards. Nice high-brow segue from "you're obviously a Trump supporter" to "civilisation is in decline due to anti-intellectualism", though. Hint: I'm British. Talk about ethnocentrism. I'm not really sure how I can constructively help you with the sentence in question without literally parsing the tokens for you and identifying the parts of speech, objects, subjects, etc. Seems like that would be a waste of time, given you've already arrived at your own immutable conclusions.

bregma 6y ago

The trouble in that part of the world would be finding a place to build that isn't on a fault line.

stevespang 6y ago

Been there, magical place. There are likely gravitational and electromagnetic anomalies where fault lines meet.

ufo 6y ago

For those who understand Portuguese, Prof. Menegat recently appeared on the Fronteiras da Ciência podcast to talk about this work: http://multimidia.ufrgs.br/conteudo/frontdaciencia/Fronteiras_da_Ciencia-T11E12-25.05.2020.mp3 http://multimidia.ufrgs.br/conteudo/frontdaciencia/Fronteira...

rossdavidh 6y ago

"Today, it faces very modern threats including overtourism, a problem that will only be exasperated by plans for a new airport in the region." ...I don't think that's what "exasperated" means. The author may have been exasperated that the problem is likely to be exacerbated by the building of the airport, though.

thomascgalvin 6y ago
He must have meant "exacerbated."