Machu Picchu: City In The Sky | Ancient Mysteries (S3, E5) | Full Episode | History

here on ancient mysteries was the bloody ritual  of child sacrifice once practiced in the towering   mountains of south america journey in search of a  spectacular lost city said to be built on one of   the most sacred spots on earth before we unlock  the future we must find the keys to the past   i'm leonard nimoy join us as we open the door  to ancient mysteries beginning now here on a e the year is 1911. a young american  explorer named hiram bingham   a professor of history at yale university hacks  his way through dense jungles in southeastern   peru following vague rumors of a lost city  hidden deep in the jungles of the andes but as bingham struggles on it seems like an  impossible dream above him are 9 thousand foot   peaks before him the deadly torrents of  the urabamba river yet bingham perseveres on the morning of july 24th he crosses the river   crawling on hands and knees  over a primitive log bridge then guided by a local indian he begins to  climb up a nearly vertical mountain by afternoon   he is among the clouds on a narrow ridge  which runs along the mountain's top   the natives call this ridge the great  peak in their language machu picchu and   on that ridge hiram bingham makes one of the most  incredible archaeological discoveries of all time   in the dense shadow hiding in bamboo thickets  and tangled vines appeared walls of white granite   carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together  as fine as the finest stonework in the world   we found ourselves standing in front of the finest  and most interesting structures in ancient america it seemed like an unbelievable  dream what could this place be   would anyone believe what i had found machu picchu built on a remote and nearly  inaccessible mountain top far from water and other   settlements a cloud shrouded enigma 8 000 feet up  the beauty of its 200 magnificent stone structures   captivates all who behold it i don't  know of any other place in the world   where the man-made and the natural come  together with a beauty that is really astounding   five centuries ago hundreds of people lived here  but why they lived here and what they did here   remains the central mystery  of this city in the sky i wish i knew how machu picchu was used what the  functions were of the various places how people   experience it themselves what were they doing  there that is what really i would love to know after hiram bingham found machu picchu  he rushed back to america to announce   his incredible discovery to the world and  to organize an expedition in 1912 his work   crews began stripping away centuries of  jungle growth from machu picchu's ruins   bingham took the world's first  photos of the city that came to light forty rows of farming terraces  hugged the steep mountainside   each over ten feet high all linked  together by some three thousand stone steps there were whole neighborhoods of what  appeared to be homes and workshops   and exquisite buildings  that bingham called temples there were sculpted rocks so strange and beautiful   they evoked forgotten rights and  the unknown gods of the high andes and everywhere he dug bingham found  huge stones some of them as big as   12 feet high fitted together with an  ancient skill that seemed unexplainable i could scarcely believe my senses  as i examined the larger blocks   and estimated that they must weigh from  10 to 15 tons each nothing like them in   design and execution has ever been found  hiram bingham over the years it followed   bingham and other archaeologists excavated  five square miles of ruins at machu picchu   today the place they uncovered has become one of  the most popular tourist destinations in the world every year thousands of people travel to peru   to marvel at machu picchu's magnificent  stonework and its stupendous setting   most are ordinary tourists they wander the  ruins listen to guides take pictures and go home   but there are others who come to machu picchu  not just to see but to feel they too reflect   the mystery of this place they are the seekers of  a new more spiritual age to them machu picchu is   rome mecca and jerusalem all rolled into one  one of the most sacred spots on planet earth i find it hard to believe that anybody could  come to machu picchu and not be opened up not be   moved uh it's it's far more than just a  an architectural archaeological wonder   there's a sense of eternity here that is  just remarkable and i've experienced that in   in cathedrals or other religious type temples but  never to the depth and the extent that i have here when i've touched some of the  rocks i've burst into tears   there's i don't understand it in a logical way  but there's a tremendous powerful energy here there is a draw to this site that comes  from within and you don't want to leave it opens up parts of your soul that you forgot  and it helps you in your day-to-day life   so that you can grow and further yourself   the mystery of machu picchu is etched in the faces  of the people who live in the andes today the   direct descendants of those who built machu picchu  so long ago the incas the incas called themselves   the children of the sun the all-powerful god  they worshipped as the source of light and life in their ancient traditions the sun sent his  beloved son and daughter to bring civilization   to the earth the incas believed they were  the descendants of this primordial couple high in the andes they built their  capital city in the place they called   the naval of the universe in the inca language   cusco it is believed that the incas began farming  in the cusco area sometime during the 12th century   at first they were no more powerful than  other small tribes living in the andes but the incas were destined to go far beyond  their humble origins they would create one of the   biggest empires and greatest civilizations of the  new world whose crowning glory was machu picchu but today we know more about inca civilization  than we do about machu picchu itself i think that   enormous amount remains to be learned about machu  picchu we would like to know who lived at the site   where they came from what they did while they  lived there um what their experiences were like   what the particular ceremonies that were carried  out there were i think by eliminating many   of the distracting and mystifying theories  concerning machu picchu we finally set the   stage for a real scientific understanding of  machu picchu and the inca empire that created it   the empire that created machu picchu would one  day be destroyed not long after the incas finished   building machu picchu the shadow of spanish  conquistadores was falling across their land   it was a shadow that would plunge the  brilliant inca civilization into darkness   and turn machu picchu from a proud city into a  place of silence and secrets as it still is today at the heart of machu picchu's  mystery lies the people who built it they were the incas one of the most  remarkable peoples of the new world harem bingham discoverer of machu picchu  thought the city might have been a place   where sacred virgins were dedicated to the  inca gods he even thought it was possible   that machu picchu might have been the inca's  last capital but he wasn't able to prove it   all that is known is that 500 years ago  when machu picchu was built the incas ruled   most of western south america until spanish  conquistadores destroyed their vast empire   but today the incas proudly keep  alive the memory of their ancient past once a year in the city of cusco some 50 miles  from machu picchu the incas celebrate the   festival of corpus christi at the winter solstice  visitors from around the world gather to watch as   groups of men bring giant images of the christian  saints from cusco's cathedral into the main square   making their way slowly around the square  the men struggle to carry the statues   which can weigh more than a ton the corpus christi procession is a  solemn right of the catholic church   which centuries ago outlawed the inca's  native religion and forced them to become   christians so why do the incas celebrate  corpus christi with such fervor today long before the conquistadores made them  catholics the incas carried sacred mummies   of their ancestral rulers around cusco's main  square this was a celebration of the new year   since the catholic church could  not destroy this ancient ritual   the church christianized it by  turning the inca mummies into saints perhaps that's why the incas celebrate  corpus christi with such devotion and   pride it represents a precious link with  the glory and greatness of their past   the long ago days when they  were masters of their world today in cusco there is still impressive evidence  of just how powerful and sophisticated they became   much of the city still rests on huge granite walls  built 500 years ago by inca stone masons clearly   they were brilliant artisans who could shape and  fit huge stones together with uncanny precision   but the incas started out as simple andean  farmers how did they transform themselves   into such accomplished craftsmen and how  did they become the lords of a mighty empire   which could build a magnificent capital like  cusco and an incredible city like machu picchu no one fully understands how inca emperors of the  15th century were able to lead armies out of the   andes and conquer vast territories but conquer  they did by the end of the 15th century the incas   ruled an area stretching from what is now colombia  in the north to present-day chile in the south look at the size of the thing if the  inca empire could be lifted and moved   it would reach from new york  city to the panama canal   how do people who didn't have horses who  didn't have any form of written message sending   put together an organization which coordinated  a number of people on the order of 12 million   the inca expansion may have been a response to  a threat from a rival people called the shankars   when the shankas attacked and all seemed lost  a great inca leader arose to meet the challenge   as the chance their rivals had  actually burst through and seemed to be   within a hair of seizing once and for all  the dominion over cusco and its valley   a prince who is later became known as pachacuti  roused a group of military detachments fought off   the chanca pacha hutienko went on to become the  most dynamic single ruler that the inca state had   he was an extraordinary leader who transformed  his people from an obscure andean tribe   into a great empire but he would have been  worthy of his name had he done nothing more   than leave us the extraordinary beauty  of machu picchu the question is did he   after saving cusco pachacudi led  his armies into wars of conquest   which brought other peoples under  inca rule for the first time   but it was one thing to conquer a huge  empire and quite another to keep control   of it pachacudi and those who have succeeded  him solved this problem in an original way   unlike many european empires which  inclined toward ideas of sweeping   away pre-existing structure and remaking  the human landscape the incas tended to   leave in place not to humiliate but rather  to honor and exalt the princes that they had   overcome yes tribute was required yes gifts  were asked but always asked and when they   were given something was always given back but  the gentle hand was balanced by a steel fist   the incas made their power stick by building  massive stone fortresses throughout their empire   the strongest of these was saksiwaman which  defended cusco itself saksihuaman's zigzagging   walls were built of enormous stones some  of them 15 feet tall and six feet wide   the inca's enemies may well have been intimidated  by this incredible feat of military engineering so the first time i saw saksawaman  i was overwhelmed by the sheer size   of the structure it is mind defying to see  a structure that's about almost 300 meters   long built of these huge stones stacked on top of  each other but there is also great beauty as such   a beauty worthy of the people who left us machu  picchu i'm also very much moved by the way   the structures fit into the landscape and i  think that's particularly powerful at suck salman   but it can be seen at machu picchu any  inca site really the stonework the whole   architecture is an interplay between nature  and the man-made one accentuating the other   could machu picchu high on its remote  mountain top have been another inca fortress   early spanish chronicles tell us that inca emperor  pachacudi led his armies into the jungle gorges   where machu picchu was built not long after  he saved his people from the chanka invaders but many who have felt the spiritual power of  machu picchu believe that only peaceful motives   could have brought nature and architecture  together here as nowhere else on earth machu picchu is the birthing  ground of a people that at one time   understood what it was to be humble and to  walk a path that did not require destruction   the incas not only had a deep understanding of  what it was to live in harmony with nature they   also had a deep understanding of what it  was to have nature live in harmony with us   the idea that incas were peaceful philosophical  unwar-like and at the same time empire builders   really is not an idea that came out of the  early moments of the conquest the spaniards   found out pretty soon that incas were able to  knock heads just like any other empire builders were the incas of people of peace or dedicated to  war why did they build their city in the clouds while visitors to machu picchu ponder such  questions the sunlight and shadow that cross   its stones reveal some intriguing clues the incas  were sun worshipers could machu picchu have been   a solar observatory was this extraordinary  building actually a new world stonehenge   or was the inca's beautiful city a place of human sacrifice here in the southern hemisphere  june is a winter month   the time of the winter solstice  the shortest days of the year   and each year as the winter solstice approaches  modern cusco prepares to relive its past   the church of santo domingo once  again becomes an inca temple   as in days of old and once again the inca emperor  and his people offer homage to their ancient   solar god it is time to celebrate inti  raimi the great festival of the sun the inti rhymie was banned by the  catholic church until the 1940s   since then tourists from around the world  have flocked to cusco to witness its revival at the ancient fortress of sexy women the  emperor's courtiers carry him to his throne today's incas reenact all that is  left of their ancient solar worship   whose last days were witnessed by a young  spanish priest more than 400 years ago   as soon as the sunrise began they started  to chant and splendid harmony and unison   they all stayed there chanting from the time  the sun rose until the time it set and as the   sun was sinking completely and disappearing  from sight they made a great act of reverence   raising their hands and worshipping it in deepest  humility father christopher de molina 1536 was   the inti rymie once performed at machu picchu many  scholars think so but once each year at the winter   solstice the same time of year as the inti raimi  machu picchu gently reveals one of its secrets on the precise day of the winter solstice the  first rays of the rising sun enter a window   in one of machu picchu's most beautiful  structures a building called the toriyon the tower   inside the torion is a single great stone which  is struck at dawn by the rays of the rising sun at the winter solstice the rays  of the sun line up perfectly with   a straight line that the anchors chiseled into the rock many scholars believe that the toriyon was a  temple dedicated to the inca's most powerful deity   whose worship dominated their lives the sun   the sun was one of the most important entities  for the inca they believed that they were the   sons of the sun or the embodiment  of the sun and their ancestors were   were the sun and moon the inca at machu picchu  would have selected that site and watched year   after year how the sun moved along the horizon  during the year and for the inti rimi ceremony on   the june solstice they would have noted where that  position was and mark the temple at that location other inca sun rituals may have taken place at  machu picchu's most puzzling and perhaps its most   beautiful artifact the exquisitely carved rock  called the intiwatana name meaning the hitching   post of the sun where the incas tied up the  setting sun they feared would disappear forever   in point of fact we do not know what that  sculpture is and we don't know that its function   calling it the hitching post of the sun is simply  a piece of mythology that has been generated about   it but for those who are more mystically inclined  there is no doubt about the intiwatana's sacred   purpose the intiwatana as a ceremonial place  allows both the hitching of the physical sun   and the hitching of the spiritual sun to rotate  in a prescribed order come into alignment on   certain sacred moments for there to be a lift  a quantum leap in consciousness for the people   but the incas also seem to have  had a darker side to their religion   a side hidden from the bright rays of the  sun this dead child perfectly preserved   by the dry climate of the andes was one of  many children offered each year to inca gods the incas believed that sacrificing  humans not only preserved their empire   but guaranteed long life to the emperor only  physically perfect children from the finest   families were selected for sacrifice the  victims were honored by the emperor himself   before priests led them to their deaths we  know that people sometimes children were   taken as offerings to the tops of the mountains  and left there to be exposed and to die in place   for the inca and other andean people the mountains  were worshiped as spirits the mountain spirits   are powerful beings to be appeased and  human sacrifice was part of that ritual even though children were sacrificed throughout  the inca empire evidence of child sacrifice at   machu picchu has yet to be found ever since  hiram bingham discovered machu picchu the   world has been entranced by the stunning beauty  of its location and by its astonishing stonework   and archaeologists have wondered why the incas  chose such a difficult and dangerous spot   to build their architectural masterpiece a faraway  mountaintop where no one had ever lived before   it's in an area where you do not have  an immediately available source of water   it's in an area where you have to bring many  of the resources you would need up very steep   slopes in order to provision the site it's  located in an area which was not heavily   settled prior to the inca occupation and it  was also an area that's located on the edge   of the inca empire so that they also had  to worry about its vulnerability to attack in the end what drove the incas to build in  such a remote spot may have been nothing more   than their love for the place itself the  site of machu picchu was probably picked   in part for its beauty the same qualities  that we admire in machu picchu the landscape   the vegetation the topography the  view all of those features existed   in inca times and we know that the anchors  were great connoisseurs of highland beauty but even if the inkers were as moved as we are  by machu picchu's soaring beauty how could they   have managed to build a city there today we can  see that building stone is plentiful at the site   but how could ancient craftsmen with only stone  tools carve these huge blocks of granite into   such exquisite shapes how could a people with no  wheels or pulleys lift them 10 feet into the air   clues to how the incas built cities have  been found in early spanish chronicles which   speak of thousands of indians pushing huge  stones into position upsloping earthen ramps while there is evidence for rams to bring stones  up along a wall and into position there are many   places particularly at machu picchu where  there is no room for such ramps because the   walls are very close to precipices so i really  don't know how the stones were brought there   questions remain about how the incas lifted  the stones of machu picchu but scholars are   beginning to understand how they use simple  rock hammers to shape stone into timeless beauty if i hit it straight on i don't produce much more  than dust however by giving the hammer a twist in   the very moment of impact i do increase the angle  at which i hit the rock and that tears off flakes as you can see it is a reasonably fast   operation it doesn't really take  long to get a face smooth like that   whatever stone they picked up had a shape and they  would cut parts of it to fit to the next stone   they would start a wall cut the stone to  fit and leave the top of the stones uncut they take another stone that has already a shape  and they would carve out that part of the lower   course to fit the other stone they carved whatever  was necessary out of the stones already set   to accept the next stone slowly scholars are  filling in pieces of the machu picchu puzzle   they now believe the city was  built around the year 1450   a time when other great monuments were  being constructed around the world in italy the brilliant architect brunelleschi   was completing the graceful dome of florence's  cathedral a masterpiece of the italian renaissance in the pacific the people of easter island  were erecting gigantic human figures   one of archaeology's enduring enigmas and in  china the main dynasty had just finished building   the temple of heaven where the emperors prayed  for good harvests and conversed with their gods   today machu picchu rivals these  other architectural marvels   but incredible as it may seem scholars believe it  was not one of the inca empire's important cities   cusco was quite a large city even by european  standards for the 16th century however in machu   picchu there were was only a population which  had its peak would have been in the hundreds   perhaps something something in the order of  five or six hundred and perhaps during much   of the year was substantially less than that  so in fact it was a fairly small town i believe   that the site was a royal estate and that it was  in a sense a place that the inca elite would go to   get away from cusco in order to spend an enjoyable  set of weeks or months at a time when the weather   was unfavorable up in the capitol so they would  have picked a place that they found particularly   attractive much in the way today people pick  resorts that are located along the beach   was machu picchu a playground for the emperor and  his court or was it a solemn center of worship as   so many believe perhaps it was both for the incas  sacred and profane were parts of one harmonious   whole and worship was a part of daily life i think  if we were to go back in time and try to imagine   what life was like at machu picchu what we'd  see would depend on what season we were visiting   if we were visiting during the season when it was  unpleasant in cusco and when the royal families   were visiting machu picchu we would probably  see a daily life filled with all sorts of pomp   with frequent banquets being given with people  drinking corn beer probably dancing and then   we'd also see at the same time in other portions  of the town religious ceremonies going on by   people of the priestly group who would be  carrying out ceremonies related to perhaps   astronomical observations or to various  types of sacrifices that had to be made machu picchu is slowly yielding  its secrets to painstaking research   but one of its most puzzling  questions remains unsolved scholars believe that by the early 16th century   a mere 50 years after it was finished  machu picchu was no longer inhabited why did the incas work so hard to build such  a beautiful city and then suddenly abandon it   the year is 1532 the incas are the undisputed  masters of western south america the rulers   of more than 10 million people their empire is  over 2 000 miles long and nearly 100 years old   as they did each new year the incas asked their  gods to bless them and to grant them a vision of   the future it is possible that they foresaw their  own doom an ancient inca prophecy foretold that a   race of unknown people would someday destroy the  empire this year the prophecy would come true in 1532 40 years after columbus discovered the  new world the spanish adventurer francisco pizarro   lands on the coast of peru he is searching  for eldorado the fabled land of gold pizarro commands 180 men against  200 000 inca warriors but he has   weapons the incas cannot even imagine horses  steel swords and lances muskets and cannon   and the spaniards have already  sent a deadly infiltrator ahead probably the most important factor in the spanish  defeat of the incas were the epidemics that had   begun to sweep the inca empire before pisarro's  invasion we know from historical sources that   early european arrivals on the south american  continent led to the spread of these western   diseases and that these diseases penetrated the  inca empire several years prior to the actual   conquest itself one can only imagine based on  accounts for example of the black plague in   europe what these kinds of epidemics can mean in  terms of the survival of a culture or of an empire when pizarro arrived on  the shores of peru he found   thousands of incas dead and dying of diseases  european diseases the emperor himself had died   civil war had broken out between  two rivals for the throne it is possible that if pizarro had arrived  one year earlier he and his men might have   been crushed by inca armies but the spaniards  arrived just in time to exploit the situation   and they found that some of the inca's  subjects were more than willing to help them for nearly a century the incas had demanded  labor and tribute from their subjects   and had taken their children to  be sacrificed to the inca gods   unbelievable as it may seem the spaniards  were often welcomed as the lesser of two evils   we know that there was an enormous desire to  throw off the inca yoke so that the spanish   invasion was seen by many non-inca ethnic groups  as an opportunity to regain their independence   various native populations sided with the  spaniards and in most of the battles that   were crucial for the spanish conquest  most of the soldiers who were fighting   were in fact native andean armies basically  with small numbers of spanish participating pizarro kidnapped arahualpa one of  the rivals for the imperial throne   arahualpa tried to buy his life with gold  which the incas called sweat of the sun the golden treasures of the sun  temples were offered to bizarro   pizarro melted them down and  murdered onto huelpa anyway there was desperate fighting for  years to come but in the end the   incas were vanquished by spanish might  and lethal diseases from across the sea their new masters transformed them into laborers  and christians the ancient prophecy was fulfilled   but as the spaniards plundered the inca  empire's wealth one of its treasures eluded   them they never discovered machu picchu  a fact which continues to puzzle scholars   some believe that soon after the spanish  arrived machu picchu was abandoned by   a troubled inca nobility which could no  longer visit its serene mountain retreat   the moment that the inca power structure was  toppled by the spaniards a site like machu picchu   became a total anomaly it became unjustified so  i suspect that the abandonment of machu picchu   occurred very shortly after pissarro's capture  of arawalpa and it simply at first was no longer   reoccupied by the elite and the retainers and  gradually the retainers began to leave it as they   no longer receive support to maintain it and the  rune simply began to collapse and become overgrown four hundred years have passed since  the spanish invaded latin america   and machu picchu was abandoned and yet   the inca people have endured today they still farm  the fields of their ancestors high in the andes in cusco their ancient capital the rainbow flag  of the inca empire flies side by side with the   modern flag of peru the incas continue  to preserve the memory of their past   and to celebrate a culture which has  been battered by the blows of history their masterpiece of beauty hidden for  so long is famed throughout the world perhaps if we could stand among these ancient  andean peaks among these ancient stones   we too might sense the unseen forces that so many  visitors seem to feel there's a consciousness here   that i don't experience any other place and i  think a lot of people around the world feel that   when they come here and i think it represents hope  that if enough people feel this that we can change   change the world perhaps it's not important  to know exactly what happened here maybe it's   for us to recreate the meaning of machu picchu  for ourselves for this day for us for our needs perhaps other cities are still lying  hidden deep in the jungles of the andes   maybe someday archaeologists will discover  them but for now machu picchu stands alone   one of the world's most beautiful places and a  haunting mystery that seems to touch the soul you

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Id: gYD2cUH8O9Q

Length: 46min 7sec (2767 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020