“Did the Incas Design Machu Picchu for Disaster? Uncovering the Secrets of Its Fault Line Construction”
“Machu Picchu’s location is not a coincidence,” Menegat said in a statement. “It would be impossible to build such a site in the high mountains if the substrate was not fractured.”
By building on these fracture zones between blocks of rock in the Earth’s crust, the Incas would have had a built-in abundance of building materials in the form of pre-fractured stone. The faults might have also served as an efficient water source, with rain and melted ice washing directly into the site, without the risks of flooding of a city built in a valley.
Published in the Geological Society of America journal and presented at its annual meeting in Phoenix this week, Menegat’s research might finally explain how the Inca managed such a demanding construction project at such heights, and how Machu Picchu has remained intact centuries later.
Terri Cook and Lon AbbottThese stones, as seen in Ollantaytambo, Peru, fit so perfectly together that the gaps in between are virtually non-existent. Menegat believes the Incas took advantage of these preexisting fractures to fit compatible pieces together.
Machu Picchu is comprised of more than 200 individual structures, and was populated by 1,000 people at the height of the Inca Empire. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983, the city’s construction has confounded people since its modern discovery in 1911.
“It could not be built on a whim. It is part of a practice of building settlements in high rocky places,” said Menegat. “But what guides this practice? What knowledge of the rocks and mountains did builders need to know to succeed in building cities under these conditions?”
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