Considering the radically different quality of stonemason work in older structures, and in lower parts of structures, used by Incas, it is hard to understand why historians insist everything in Peru was built by Incas immediately preceding the Spanish invasion. It is often quite easy to distinguish later Inca repairs from masterful original construction.
Pushing back use of Machu Picchu a few decades is fine, but I think they still have nothing material to suggest when construction began. It could have been built a thousand years before, abandoned, and then re-occupied and repaired later.
It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.
> It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.
Yeah the "partial restoration" always rubbed me the wrong way, basically choosing an arbitrary level of insufficient repair and maintenance.
If the residents of Machu Picchu were alive today, how would they feel about their city being half-assedly fixed? Why not just rebuild the city to the best of your ability true to its original architecture and building methods? It's arguably a disgrace as-is.
I have similar feelings about the pyramids in Egypt. Calling them "historic ancient ruins" seems like a convenient excuse to neglect repairs/maintenance and let them slowly deteriorate back into the earth. Get on it, show us what the pyramids are supposed to look like at their finest! I hear their flat stone faces would gleam in the sun.
I would love to see the gleaming pyramids! But I can’t help but think of Cecilia Giménez’s well-intentioned repair of Ecce Homo (the Jesus fresco).
For historical sites with any mystery, even a restoration done with skill and care would create some fiction while destroying evidence that could be used in the future. Earlier eras were filled with this kind of sanctioned, inquisitive vandalism - the Victorian fascination with mummies is especially relevant. There’s a lot we won’t ever learn because of that early enthusiasm.
I’m not advocating doing nothing with historical sites. I’m just more comfortable with preservation than reconstruction that replaces the original. If they want to build a brand new set of pyramids, using original construction methods and designed to match, just do it off to the side a little bit and I’m all for it.
The important thing is that we learn all that we possibly can from the ancient structures.
Then, I would agree with restoring and maximally using these structures for modern purposes. If ancient Egypt persisted, the pyramids would have changed as well. Change shape, color, purpose. Who knows.
Change is integral to life and trying to keep something the same for millenia just for the sake of not changing it, is unnatural.
But alas, we don't know what we don't know. This is the major argument in the way of ever abandoning these structures as archeological sites and to shift them to modern use.
Having been to parts of the Greta wall that were fully “repaired”, keep in mind what you’re asking would most likely make it seem like it was from Disneyland or a cheap facade.
How does replacing the fascia stones, putting the originals in a museum protecting them from further erosion in the elements, destroy all archaeological value of the pyramids?
The Inca repairs theory is not well supported by evidence. Incas used smaller stones for detailed elements higher up and larger stones for basic elements lower down. Along the same lines, most of Machu Picchu is earthworks that support the structure and landscape terraces and that has an even more mysterious relationship to the buildings on top.
The difference is not the size of the stones, but the quality of workmanship. You could imagine the competent masons doing most of the building, and leaving the top bits for the apprentices to slap together in a hurry, but it would be a stretch. The more plausible scenario is earthquake damage displacing upper courses, to be repaired and added onto some unknown time later, maybe centuries.
We need those surface luminescence studies to get some objective facts to work with.
Only way to do that would be if there was organic matter trapped when it was constructed. At least that is my understanding of this regarding carbon dating.
It would be possible to do surface-luminescence analysis, which reveals when a stone surface was last exposed to sunlight. But I have not heard of any such done in Peru.
Only a few Egyptian samples were analyzed, that seemed to place them 500 years "too early". There seems little enthusiasm to follow up. Most specialists see little value: either the results match what is already believed, or they show that everybody but a few cranks were wrong. The first is a waste of precious grants; the latter a big nuisance.
Wherever you got your information from is either greatly outdated or outright wrong. Thermoluminescence dating is quite possibly the single most used dating method in modern archaeology. It's used anywhere and everywhere funding and preconditions allow it to be.
Yet, as I said, barely used on Egyptian constructions.
Most archaeological contexts are less fraught with obnoxious cranks (who might be right about the timeline, but for all the wrong reasons!), and so are correspondingly more open to factual input. And, have fewer career results at risk from newly obtainable facts.
Well that’s not reassuring for the field of archaeology … Couldn’t the ‘cranks’ just pool together some funds and do the testing to settle the debates?
The GP is incorrect regarding how frequently TL dating is used. However, in general you have destructively test something in order to TL date it or work sampling into your excavation plan upfront. For obvious reasons, archeologists typically don't give 'cranks' access to archived materials to destroy, nor do they typically consult them when designing their excavation plans.
TL is very unevenly used, and mainly where nobody has already staked a claim as to how old the thing is. Proving senior investigators wrong is a good way to interfere with getting tenure. After they retire is considered a better time to find out if they were right.
Using advanced radiocarbon dating, it may be "up to several decades older than previously thought". And "at least 20 years older" – back to about AD1420, instead of AD1440-1450.
So this isn't a massive revision changing big conceptions about pre-Columbian Incan society - just a hint Spanish interpretations of native records, post-conquest, somewhat off.
I haven’t made it to Manchu Picchu yet, but as an Old World archaeology enthusiast, I visited some Mayan sites in the past year and was way more impressed than I expected to be. If you think like I used to & and assume that all the cool old stuff is in the Old World, consider challenging that assumption :)
Calakmul in Mexico was my favorite. I loved climbing the steps of a pyramid, rising above the jungle canopy, and then seeing a pyramid twice as high staring back at me.
I can't recommend Calakmul enough. It is a far larger and more interesting site than Chichen Itza, by a substantial margin. And, there are at most a few hundred visitors per day (we saw maybe ~100 total the day we visited) vs 6000+ per day at Chichen Itza. You can climb all the structures at Calakmul and the understanding you get of the scope, views of the rest of the site and surrounding area, etc are incredible.
Here are a few pictures I took at Calakmul of two of the many large structures:
The "Mayan Train" is currently under construction and may eventually bring many more tourists to the area - I would highly suggest going before that happens and everything there changes. (It will be great for the region in terms of economic impact, but the status quo with few visitors on incredible sites is really magnificent.)
The ruins at Becan, Xpuhil (Xpujil), and Coba are all also really incredible - and only a handful of people visit them per day. You can easily stay in Bacalar, visit Chetumal in the morning, drive to see Becan and Xpujil in the afternoon, and then visit Calakmul the next day. (Driving back to Tulum/Playa del Carmen/etc makes for a long drive afterwards, but is certainly doable.)
Fly into Cancun, rent a car, and then go drive down the coast and plan various stops for a really great trip. Playa del Carmen and Tulum are fun, of course, in an "international tourism" sense. Bacalar and Chetumal are also "tourist towns", but they are very different - think of a small, charming beach/lake town with an older, more original/authentic feel.
Prepay for the rental car, too. If you prepay, you'll get the agreed upon price. If you don't, you may find your rental car doubles or triples in price. Best to book on the rental car's website.
From the top of one of the tall structures in Calakmul, you should be able to see El Mirador on a clear day, possibly with binoculars. El Mirador is on the Guatemalan side and is also a pretty amazing site, especially if you want to see what some of these sites look like before they are fully excavated and cleaned up for tourist crowds. El Mirador is deep in the jungle and requires a multi-day journey, preferably with mules to get there. When I went several years ago, I remember only crossing paths with one other group of tourists for the whole 60 mile round trip journey.
I recommend the region, and just getting yourself or a small group into the area and going to smaller sites.
Machu Picchu is impressive. However it is overwhelmed by tourists and the modern structure in the valley below detract from it.
The small sites on the various trails in are quiet, and incredible. Many haven’t been reconstructed is dubious fashion. It’s am amazing area.
It's honestly baffling how popular alternative history and other such conspiracy nonsense is to the public, even for entertainment. I don't know anyone who believes there's a conspiracy to hide the proof of P=NP, but major television networks have multiple productions dedicated to archaeological conspiracy theories. They're always so random too, like "Egyptians had US military helicopters".
It is baffling to me that people get so angry about what starts out as some fairly basic observations. The Sphinx, for example, has an obviously mismatched head that represents one of the later kings and also has some interesting weathering patterns. Also, many very old monuments have similar characteristics being made of very large stones without ornament. Some go way too far with their theories, but there is plenty of room to speculate about prehistory without being accused of randomness or conspiracy theories.
Early observations of ruins in the Americas concluded that some ancient civilization had traveled and built everything there since native Americans were considered to be primitives. Giving credit to the Maya for their language and literature was considered a weird conspiracy at first but ongoing study proved otherwise.
For deep dive into Inca culture, including Machu Pichu, check out the Fall of Civilizations channel. It is hours long but well worth the time. This creator is more sensitive towards the local culture that most other television or YouTube creators.
We did the Inca Trail years ago and the tour guides kept talking about people from 'Jail' - which we later found out was Yale sounds like with a Peruvian accent!
I am a Peruvian interested in Incan culture. I think its way interesting that they think that because Machu Picchu was built 20 years earlier, that Pachacuti, who is thought to have built Machu Picchu was conquering tribes much earlier. I believe it makes sense that Pachacuti built Machu Picchu, works by ancient rulers were often built by the rulers themselves when they were alive. I believe Pachacuti built Machu Picchu. Some people think its more ancient, but Incans like everybody else are normal people, they built this monument for prestige during the reign of the greatest Inca.
Looking at those ruins one can forget how relatively young that place is. And looking at mostly modern buildings at the village I come from - easy to forget that the place is much older than Machu Picchu. It was probably luck and the fact that my place is (and was) irrelevant - so it could survive.
I remember on my way back from Machu Picchu, I was still thinking about how relatively young it was when we were touring Lima and were shown Huaca Pucllana, a clay/adobe pyramid in downtown Lima that's probably around 1,000 years older than Macchu Pichu. What's neat is had Lima not been in a desert, 1500 years of rainfall would've ruined the place.
Pushing back use of Machu Picchu a few decades is fine, but I think they still have nothing material to suggest when construction began. It could have been built a thousand years before, abandoned, and then re-occupied and repaired later.
It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.