Almost a century after its archaeological discovery and thanks to recent studies of sixteenth century archival documents, there are good arguments to suppose that the citadel of Machu Picchu was - like the pyramids of the pharaohs in Egypt or the tomb of the emperor Chin Shi Huan in China - the luxurious and well cared mausoleum of the Inca Pachacutec, founder and first emperor of Tawantinsuyu.

No one doubts that it is a sanctuary of superior social position built in a privileged place seven or eight days' journey on foot from the city of Cusco. In Machu Picchu there are remains of buildings that were covered with gold, presumably with fantasy gardens, idols and offerings like those of the temple of Koricancha in Cusco.

There are also other temples and palaces still remaining, all adjacent and carefully constructed, crossed by a network of fine fountains of water carved into the rock, altars, cosmic observatories and multiple spaces for the cult of the dead; from them, on many days of the year, can be enjoyed the spectacle of rainbows which are born and die right in front of one's eyes.

The place was known as Picchu, Piccho, or Picho during colonial times and consisted of two parts: Machu ("old") and Wayna ("young"). Picchu means "hill", "mountain" or "peak" and therefore the name is simply descriptive. In the citadel of Machu Picchu few people lived - probably no more than 200 or 300 - and, if what we suspect is true, all of them were of high rank and were linked to the lineage of the Inca, that is, they were descendents of the founder of Tawantinsuyu.

According to traditions collected by the Spanish, Machu Picchu must have been built under the direction of Pachacutec. The sequence of the process of its construction is not known, but it seems to have been the work of a single project tantamount to a sanctuary or "urbanization" where the spaces, levels and forms were previously established.

Everything indicates that the citadel of Machu Picchu was rapidly vacated after 1540, when the Spanish, in a campaign against the rebellious Incas of Vilcabamba, began their penetration into Cusco lands. Vilcabamba is near the area and for this reason Hiram Bingham, along with his contemporaries from Cusco, thought that it was the "lost city" which served as the refuge of the celebrated warriors who kept up the Inca resistance until 1572 when the last of them, the Inca Tupac Amaru, was taken prisoner and decapitated.

DESCRIPTION OF MACHU PICCHU
The sanctuary of Machu Picchu is divided into two large sectors - one the agricultural sector and the other the urban or the citadel - of which the first surrounds the second. We could consider the peak Wayna Picchu as a third sector.

The principal road to approach Machu Picchu, which comes from Cusco through the south (Qosqoñan), crosses the crest of the mountain and goes to the entrance to the sanctuary after passing through areas with isolated constructions - such as what is now called the watchtower - posts for lookouts or guards, qolqa or granaries and abundant agricultural terraces. There were also other roads, such as that which made the river accessible from the sanctuary on the northeast.

The sanctuary properly speaking is a citadel made up of palaces and temples, dwellings and storehouses, but above all are the buildings which clearly fulfill ceremonial and religious functions, with luxurious and spectacular components carved in the rock.

The buildings as well as the plazas and the platforms that constitute the urban sector are connected among themselves by a system of narrow lanes or paths, mostly in the form of steps, crossing the terraces and reaching a flat longitudinal axis. The main platform of the urban sector is an extensive plaza which divides the buildings into hanan ("above" or "upper") and urin ("below" or "lower"). The urban sector was surrounded by obstacles to the sanctuary such as a defense wall and the deep and wide ditch which surrounded the whole complex, not as part of a military fortification rather as a form of restricted ceremonial isolation.

WAYNA PICCHU, THE "YOUNG MOUNTAIN"
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 stairway which circles the hill on the west. Its steps, in some stretches, are carved directly into the rock.

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.

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 imagine people walking through the streets and plazas, sitting 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 ethno history help resolve those and other questions, but of course they have limitations. Who lived in Machu Picchu and what did they do?

The mausoleum of the Inca was surrounded by temples, altars and other spaces where the coya, the head of the panaca ("family") of Pachacutec, 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. If the hypothesis that it was the mausoleum of Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui is valid, it is worth the trouble to search how it was in such conditions.