Exploring Machu Picchu 'Lost City of the Inca's'

Author Mark Adams talked about his explorations at Machu Picchu. Known as the 'Lost City of the Incas,' the site is deep in the Andes Mountains of Peru. It's thought that a group of Inca nobles moved to the remote mountaintop location to escape Spanish conquerors, he noted. Adams described some of the unique buildings on the site, and his startling experience of being there during a June solstice, when beams of light shot into the Sun Temple, forming a perfect rectangle of light.

Biography:

Author Mark Adams has been fascinated with lost cities and sacred ruins since he saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at age 12. Mark has explored and gathered information as part of his life's work. He has written for publications ranging from National Geographic Adventure to GQ to Rolling Stone, and is currently researching the lost city of Atlantis.

Wikipedia
Machu Picchu (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmatʃu ˈpiktʃu], Quechua: Machu Picchu [ˈmɑtʃu ˈpixtʃu], "Old Peak") is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. Machu Picchu is located in the Cusco Region of Peru, South America. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438--1472). Often referred to as the "City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World.

The Incas started building the "estate" around 1400, but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally
looked like. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored. The restoration work continues to this day.

Since the site was never known to the Spanish during their conquest, it is highly significant as a relatively intact cultural site. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana (Hitching post of the Sun), the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu. In September 2007, Peru and Yale University almost reached an agreement regarding the return of artifacts which Yale has held since Hiram Bingham removed them from Machu Picchu in the early 20th
century. In November 2010, a Yale University representative agreed to return the artifacts to a Peruvian university