Marcahuamachuco, an enigmatic 1,600-year-old archeological complex built from stone in the northern Peruvian Andes, is emerging bit by bit from oblivion and could become a beacon of tourism on the scale of Machu Picchu.
Spread over 240 hectares on a plateau more than 3,700m high in the mountains, the pre-Incan site embodies the evils that have befallen Peru’s archeological treasures.
Though still full of mysteries — who lived here, and why, is unknown — the complex has been plundered of artifacts that might help unlock its secrets, and has long been subjected to the depredations of nature.
Photo: AFP
However, it is still there, groups of sometimes monumental stone-building, massive rounded walls that rise between 10m and 15m, galleries, a rectangular plaza and dwellings, and an urban religious center with a sanctuary.
“All of it walled in, a fortress of stone on a plateau to defend against invasion,” chief archeologist Cristian Vizconde said.
Marcahuamachuco — in Quechua, “the people of the men with hawklike headdresses” — has been studied by archeologists since 1900.
Parts of the site are still buried under centuries of accumulated earth, masking its true dimensions.
However, its splendor was revealed anew in October last year, when brush was cleared away as part of a major preservation effort by the government in partnership with the Global Heritage Fund (GHF), a non-profit whose mission is to protect endangered world cultural heritage sites.
The fund is providing scientific help to study, preserve and make Marcahuamachuco — long overshadowed by the far more celebrated Machu Picchu more than 1,000km away — ready for sustainable tourism. The goal is to get it registered as a world heritage site by UNESCO.
“It is the most important pre-Inca center in the Andes, with its own language, Culli [which lasted until the 20th century], with its own gods and buildings unlike any seen in Peruvian archeological sites,” he said.
Even so, the complex remains shrouded in mystery.
“We don’t know what culture Marcahuamachuco belonged to. We do know that the stone structures, with walls 10m to 15m high, were built between 350 and 400 AD, but we don’t know when its inhabitants arrived or where they came from,” Vizconde said.
Canadians John Topic and Theresa Lange-Topic, who have studied the complex, believe its last inhabitants left around the 13th century and that when the Incas arrived two centuries later, they found only shepherds among the ruins.
“It’s not known why they went, possibly because of an epidemic, but it’s all a mystery that remains to be solved,” Vizconde said.
Archeologists hope to find clues in burial sites found behind thick walls in an area of the complex called the Castle, where priests or nobles may have been buried.
“Those places have been sacked, but the few human remains that were left will be analyzed with the help of GHF,” Vizconde said, adding that another possible cemetery was found recently and could give up more secrets.
Julio Vargas, a GHF expert on archeological structures, said he was impressed by the size of the buildings and the mortar work used to join stones in a way that has endured centuries of rain, wind and abandonment.
“What strikes me is the incredible transparence of the ensemble: It was very open, as if it were a public message, built to impress, to show the power of a dynasty, I would imagine,” GHF adviser John Hurd said.
Hurd said the site could “break the dependence of the tourism industry on Machu Picchu.”
Tourism could bring work and respect for the ancient ruins in an area where more than 300 other archeological sites are endangered by informal gold mining.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese