
Machu Picchu was purposely built on intersecting fault lines: research (2019) - onetimemanytime
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/machu-picchu-was-purposely-built-top-intersecting-fault-lines-180973216/
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sixstringtheory
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.

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onetimemanytime
off topic: did you feel altitude sickness?

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yencabulator
Wikipedia says Machu Pichu is only 2,400 meters / 7,900 feet altitude? That's
not _that_ high.

I mean, sure, try to acclimate somewhere if you're coming in from sea level,
but much of Colorado is at that elevation, and the peaks are above 14,000
feet. Traveling to ski at Telluride is more elevation.

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fimbulvetr
That's right. Before I went, I spent at least a 18 months hiking trails in
Colorado with similar profiles to the one we'd do on the 1 day Inca trail
which led to a 2nd day at MP. I also ski a decent amount every year here in
CO.

I can say with certainty that it wasn't enough to keep up with our Inca guide
or even to tackle the hike with no complaints. While I'm sure it helped
considerably to prepare for months ahead of time, I personally feel that
there's some other unquantified difference between here and there that makes
it just a bit harder. But try it and let me know if it was just a walk in the
park. Just don't drink the coca tea the night before you start your hike like
I foolishly did.

We also did hyanu piccu, which is absolutely amazing and an additional hike
that is like a sprint at the end of a difficult race. It doesn't take long,
but at the very least can give you a great carido workout.

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ciguy
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.

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hawk_
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.

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bregma
The alien spacecraft landing area in Nazca, PE, is not all that old but still
amazing and worth visiting. I mean, aliens! On Earth!

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hawk_
I mean I know United States Americans like to call outsiders aliens or illegal
aliens but that doesn't mean they have spacecrafts

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rossdavidh
"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.

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thomascgalvin
He must have meant "exacerbated."

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nkingsy
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.

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barbegal
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.

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garmaine
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.

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catalogia
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.

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ufo
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/Fronteira...](http://multimidia.ufrgs.br/conteudo/frontdaciencia/Fronteiras_da_Ciencia-T11E12-25.05.2020.mp3)

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philshem
A fun read about MP:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-
at-m...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-at-machu-
picchu)

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

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Pyramus
> “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.

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mateus1
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.

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Pyramus
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."

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peter_d_sherman
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...

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onyva
>> 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?

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markalexander
I think you're misparsing the sentence. It just means that this is when it
first became known to "western science".

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fma
It's whitewashing of the world .

Take for example the Monk Fruit:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii)

Known in China...but scientific name attributed to the westerner who "found
it" in the 1930s.

It's very common if you are cognizant of it.

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markalexander
Hardly. We don't often use Chinese words in English regardless of the context,
presumably because English speakers find the terms difficult to remember or
hard to pronounce.

Chinese does exactly the same thing. I mean, is 盲文 [1] 'yellow' (euch--your
terminology) washing? It meets the same standard.

And how about China claiming to have invented high-speed rail, mobile payments
and ecommerce? [2] No cries of racism for that one? Strange.

There are many parallel examples.

Edit:

[1] 盲文 lit. _blind language_ aka _Braille_ in English, after its creator.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_new_inventions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_new_inventions)

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fma
What? I don't read Chinese but Google translate tells me that 盲文 is Braille,
and individually it breaks down to "Blind text".

The same standard would be if China took the word "Braille" and then in
Chinese, it is named after the first Chinese person who read Braille.

If you think English speakers have an easy time saying "Siraitia grosvenorii",
the scientific name, named after the "discover" Grosvenor, then you have some
serious delusions.

