Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a 2,430 mtr. mountain ridge. The Incas, in contrast with the Mayans, had no written language, and no European visited the site until 1911, when it was discovered. There are, therefore, no written records of the site while it was in use. The names of the buildings, their supposed uses, and their inhabitants are all the product of modern archeologists, on the basis of physical evidence, including tombs at the site.
Most recent archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later, at the time of the Spanish conquest. According to the new radiocarbon dating, it was occupied from c. 1420–1532.
In the Quechua language, machu means "old" or "old person", while pikchu means "pyramid; pointed, multi-sided solid; cone". Thus the name of the site can be interpreted as "old mountain"
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