Machu Picchu Construction Begins

1448

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui ordered the construction of a royal estate high above the Urubamba River on a narrow ridge between two soaring Andean peaks. Built of precisely fitted white granite at nearly eight thousand feet, Machu Picchu served as a sacred retreat for the Inca elite, its terraces and temples aligned with solstice sunrises. Its existence remained hidden from the Spanish, and indeed from the entire outside world, until Hiram Bingham stumbled upon it in 1911.