In the center, the great plaza is decomposing on various wide terraces, which on the west, face the imposing Cyclopean parameters of the sacred plaza, which are stepped almost vertically over them. On the east they face the highest part of urin, which contains the palace that has been called the aqllawasi from the supposition that it would have lodged a group of chosen women whose service to the Inca included fine handcraft labor. In fact, it is a matter of a second plaza, or perhaps a garden or orchard, formed by a flat space with a well-defined rectangular ground plan.

To the south the large plaza also takes in another space differentiated at a lower level and in the form of a trapezoid. It is at the foot of the palace to the west and of a shrine and an urin mausoleum to the east; it is also very elegant and associated with a surrealistic allegory of a condor in the pose of descending upon a cave. Here the plaza ends, which, as we see, crosses the whole north-south axis of Machu Picchu with its various levels of flights of steps. All of it except the south end of the shrine, where the royal mausoleum is located to the west and a group of houses to the east, both separated by rather high terraces. This face without a plaza borders on the north with the main flight of steps, the one which, moreover, is accompanied from the Torreon by a chain of fountains united by canals carved into the rock.

Wayna Picchu and the temple of the moon - Wayna Picchu, the "young mountain"
Owing to the documents that have been found in the last few years, we know that the site in times previous to the visit of Hiram Bingham was simply called Picchu or "mountain". It had two sections: the southern a humpbacked massif called Machu ("elder" or "old"), and the northern slender and standing erect, called Wayna ("younger" or "young"). The sanctuary is really in the middle, between the two peaks, on the crest which bridges them together. The name Machu Picchu is due to Bingham's guides' reference to the section to which they had to climb in order to arrive at the ruins.

When we arrive at the north end of the sanctuary, behind the Sacred Rock we find the path that leads to Wayna Picchu. After passing a small hill called Uña, the path becomes a long narrow flight of steps which circles the hill on the west. Its steps, in some stretches, are carved directly into the rock.

Together the path, which adapts to the curves of the hill, we can appreciate small terraces for cultivation that formed part of the two gardens which adorned the sanctuary and its surroundings. Another path ascends Wayna Picchu from Mandorpampa, to the northeast. It is steeper, longer, and crosses terraces and grottos which served for keeping the dead.

On the summit, which is knife-shaped, at an altitude of 2720 m, in the middle of the rocks there is a carved stone that popular imagination has designated the "Inca's chair". There are also a few chambers and terraces. The view is impressive: the whole sanctuary is seen as though it were a scale model and in the setting one appreciates the wide horizon made up by mountain peaks, the meanders of the Urubamba and the ruggedness of the ravines.

The temple of the Moon
Although the landscape and the few remains of buildings and terraces situated on top of the mountain are worthy of esteem for themselves, there is no doubt that that the set of caverns on the north slope, with their back to the sanctuary, is a spectacular monument. The caverns are perched on the cliffs of the Cordillera, virtually over the Urubamba River, which runs several hundred feet down in the depths of the canyon which surrounds the mountain as it changes its south - north course in the opposite direction to form a sort of great scroll.

Many of the caverns have been embellished by man and converted into chambers probably destined for burials. The more notable ones are known as the Temple of the Moon. Actually this name is arbitrary, just like many the many names by which the other sectors of Machu Picchu are known.

And it is that here there did not even have to be a temple, even though the forms and location of the caverns announce a ceremonial rather than domestic administrative or military function. Several of the caverns are interconnected.

There is a very large cavern on the route which comes up from Mandorpampa. It is a cavern stationed under a large rock, similar in a way to that of the royal mausoleum or the Crypt of the Condor. It is some 7 m wide, 12 m long and 2.5 m high, and the earth floor is flat. Over this is another similar one and both are associated with covered corridors, stairs and intermediary passages. The caverns have been conditioned with much care: the internal walls are of fine masonry and present luxurious details, such as niches with triple jambs and altars carved into the rock. Apart from the royal and the condor mausoleums, these are the most outstanding.

In the excavations performed by Bingham's team, on the northern and eastern slopes, about five caves were found that were occupied presumably for keeping mummified bodies. Lamentably, the caves that were associated with the Temple of the Moon do not still contain remains, which were probably looted. Those that remained were poorly finished and just hid broken ceramics. They were crevices rather than caves.

Reconstructing the past
Every time we are faced with a place whose written history does not exist, there is a great temptation to imagine how it was and who lived there in its time of splendor. We conceive of people walking through the streets and plazas, seated or performing ceremonies, using their vessels, dressed with their adornments... Live or written reports no longer exist, but we all know something like this happened in that place. Archaeology and ethnohistory help resolve those and other questions, but of course they have limitations. Who lived in Machu Picchu and what did they do? If the hypothesis that it was the mausoleum of Pachakutec Inca Yupanqui is valid, it is worth the trouble to know as it could have been that place in such conditions.

The mausoleum of the Inca was surrounded by temples, altars and other spaces where the coya, the head of the panaca ("family") of Pachakutec, his servants, and the amautas who maintained the cult lived, far from the regular circuit of the roads, in the middle of a forest of orchids. If Machu Picchu was the Inca's "house", called Patallacta in the chronicles, it must have been constructed during his long mandate at the beginning of the fifteenth century, some hundred years before the arrival of the Spanish. According to what the old accounts say, those residences were used by the Incas themselves for their recreation and rest while they lived. They were endowed with all the resources necessary for their operation without depending on the outside, with their own fields for cultivation, livestock, workshops and the rest.

Inca society
Whoever lived in Machu Picchu must have been close to the Inca. Inca society had a rigid social structure in its ethnic relations and as a function of where power originated but not as a function derived from wealth. Class structure did not respond so much to the position of persons within a scale of economic power, as much as to individuals' belonging to lineages and specific communities or to the functions that they had to fulfill within these collectives, which were hierarchized according to the sphere of their domain and the character of their competencies.

Power was obtained through ethnic membership and from performance. Ethnic chiefs were the curaca, hierarchized according to the territorial and social magnitude of their chiefly functions from local curaca to curaca who had authority over several communities. The Incas had power over many of these curaca and these over a chain of other chiefs of lesser territorial levels. In this way the Inca had available to him the tribute and services of a large number of people, but always through the various intermediary levels which the curaca represented.

When the Inca managed to conquer Tawantinsuyu, his transition from king to emperor was that of a curaca who had power over a sphere which encompassed communities from the Cuzco watershed, to one which was progressively incorporating under its control the labor and obedience of many ethnic groups that inhabited other territories. To be king of Cuzco meant, in its moment, that local curaca passed to the condition of sinchi owing to the warrior dominion over the valleys of Cuzco. The condition of Yupanqui ("he who adds or unites") and of Sapan ("only") Pachacutec Inca acquired on dominating other ethnic groups outside of Cuzco.

And the descendants of this Inga Yupangue were called from then on till now Capac aillo Inga Yupanque Haguaynin which says the lineage of descending kings and grandchildren of Inga Yupangue and these are the most exalted and have the most among those of Cuzco that no one from another lineage and these are the ones who were commanded to wear two feathers on the head.

To be of the lineage of the Incas conceded a lot of prestige and privileges. Those of the lineage of Pachacutec, for this reason, were distinguished from the rest. The other Cuzco lineages were their "peers" but maintained only the dignities of their ancestry, without acquiring any other privilege except status. The wife of Pachakutec is described by Juan de Betanzos in Chapter 17.

The cult of the dead Inca
According to Betanzos in chapter 32, "the mummified body of Pachacutec was in a town known as Patallacta, from where it was carried in a litter to the city of Cuzco for certain important ceremonies. On such occasions it was exhibited in the house of the Sun, or Qoricancha, together with the mummies of the rest of the Incas, making them participate in them as if they were alive, pretending that they taked with him. One part of the ritual included sings which repeated the deeds he performed in life, in wars as well as in his public works. Likewise, they changed his clothing and they served him food and drink the in the same way as when he was alive. "

If we move this reference to Machu Picchu, we can imagine the mummified body of the Inca deposited in the crypt which lies below the Torreon in which there is a window prepared to hold and tie up the golden idol which Pizarro later carried off. We can also imagine that this mummy and that of the curaca Chanca Usco Willca (who it seems always accompanied him) went and came from Cuzco in ritual processions two or three times a year. We can also imagine that this mummy and that of the curaca Chanca Usco Willca (who it seems always accompanied him) went and came from Cuzco in ritual processions two or three times a year.

According to Betanzos, the cult of the dead Incas was established by Pachakutec. The chronicler tells that when Pachacuteq's father Viracocha "died at the age of 80 or more, in his "house" in Xaquixahuana, above Colca he honored very much having his body brought in a litter well adorned as though he were alive to the city of Cusco every and when there were celebrations, paying honor to his person to the lords of Cusco and the rest of the caciques ... before which bundle (mummy) they made sacrifice and burn many sheep and lambs (alpacas and llamas) and clothing and maize and coca and spill much chicha ..., and he had made very many bundles (mummies) and so many lords had succeeded since Mango Capac until his father Viracocha Inga ... to those which he ordered that everyone respect and revere as idols and that thus they were made sacrifices like those who were placed in their houses and every time when and when that some lords entered where the Inga was they were paying respect to the sun and then to the bundles and then they entered into where the Inga was."

This same chronicler says that "for the service of which bundles [mummies] he indicated and named a certain quantity of yanaconas and mamaconas and gave them lands in which to sow and gather for the service of these bundles and also indicated much livestock for sacrifices they therefore had to do and this service and lands and livestock he gave and he distributed to each bundle by itself and ordered that they take great care continually at night and in the morning to give to eat and to drink to these bundles and sacrifice them for which he commanded and indicated that each one of these a steward of the such servants as he also indicated."

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