Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a 2,430-meter mountain ridge. It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometers northwest of Cuzco. The Urubamba River flows past it, cutting through the Cordillera and creating a canyon with a tropical mountain climate. For most speakers of English or Spanish, the first 'c' in Picchu is silent. In English, the name is pronounced or, in Spanish as [ˈmatʃu ˈpitʃu] or [ˈmatʃu ˈpiktʃu], and in Quechua as [ˈmatʃʊ ˈpɪktʃʊ]. The Incas, in contrast with the Mayans, had no written language, and no European visited the site until the 19th century, so far as is known. There are, therefore, no written records of the site while it was in use. The names of the buildings, their supposed uses, and their inhabitants are all the product of modern archeologists, on the basis of physical evidence, including tombs at the site.

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Huayna Picchu is Original Name of Inca City Now Known as Machu Picchu

We May Have Been Calling Machu Picchu The Wrong Name For Over 100 Years

Study reconsiders name of Peru's Machu Picchu

Ancient and hidden, Machu Picchu's complexity uncovered by archaeologists

Historical Timeline Is Inaccurate: Advanced Radiocarbon Dating Reveals Machu Picchu Is Older Than Expected

Machu Picchu is Several Decades Older Than Previously Thought

New Discovery Indicates Machu Picchu Could Be Decades Older Than We Realized

Accelerator mass spectrometry — an advanced form of radiocarbon dating — reveals that Machu Picchu was in use from about A.D. 1420 to A.D. 1530 making the site at least 20 years older than the accepted historical record suggests.

Machu Picchu was built decades earlier than thought