By Alex Markels
Who in their right mind would construct an estate on an unstable mountain slope prone to landslides? "A terrible building site," clucks engineer Kenneth Wright, author of Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering Marvel. But the 15th-century Incas knew what they were doing. When they built a retreat for their king Pachacuti, they chose that "terrible" plot based on the oldest and wisest real-estate maxim in the world: location, location, location. And they knew how to build structures that would last an eternity.

advertisement

They also knew how to build with style and grace. Stonemasons carved and polished the gray granite building blocks of the terraced, 25-acre compound until they nearly glowed. Most every room in the temples and residences had a view--and what a view it was. Perched 1,640 feet above Peru's sacred Urubamba River on a narrow ridge that joins two massive granite peaks, the regal inhabitants gazed at a cathedral of snowcapped mountains. But they weren't just nature lovers. The king and his company returned from royal hunts in the jungle to feast and dance in an elongated central plaza.

Pachacuti claimed direct descent from old Sol, so the engineers who built the Inca king's retreat made sure its every feature glorified his stature. As the sun moves across the sky, "the whole place shifts," says Patricia Lyon, an anthropologist with the Institute of Andean Studies who spent decades studying the site with her husband, Inca specialist John Rowe. Because of the patchwork quilt layout of buildings and walls, "patterns of light and shadow shift across the terraces, corners, and doorways, highlighting first one and then another as if the complex was in a constant state of reconstruction."

Although the crumbling Inca Empire abandoned Machu Picchu amid the Spanish onslaught of the early 16th century, the masterwork has survived exquisitely intact (albeit consumed by a jungly thicket). "The magic of Machu Picchu is unseen," says Wright. His recent excavations revealed that Inca engineers meticulously prepared the site, laying a coarse layer of rocks beneath the topsoil and buttressing granite walls with additional stones so the 79 inches of annual rain wouldn't wash away the structures. Expert hydrologists as well, the Incas estimated the runoff from tropical downpours, then designed a drainage system to channel water through small holes cut in the rock. "It's a problem many modern cities weren't designed to handle," says Wright. "The Incas thought things through."

That's particularly true of the 16 fountains, which draw water from a perennial spring a half mile uphill. With an elegance reminiscent of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house, a carefully constructed canal system channels water throughout the complex, "so the Inca ladies could always fill jugs with fresh water," says Kenneth Wright.

Not lost. Machu Picchu spent centuries in obscurity, but in 1911 American archaeologist Hiram Bingham rediscovered the king's compound. He thought it was the "Lost City"--the traditional birthplace of the Inca people. Others have surmised that Machu Picchu was an impenetrable citadel. Neither theory appears true. Pottery from the site dates from no earlier than the classical Inca period of the mid-1450s. And a supposed military barracks turned out to be a standard community house. Wright's work, along with that of other scholars, has helped solidify assertions that Machu Picchu was a royal retreat from damp, chilly winters in the highland capital of Cuzco.

A new exhibit, "Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas," supports the idea. Now at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, the traveling show includes items suggesting a long-ago Club Med: the remains of residents whose skeletons appear unburdened by heavy labor, a clay flute, a pair of dice.