Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (35 page)

I believe that this group of houses was once occupied by Titu Cusi and his mother and brother. They certainly lived in comparative luxury. Tupac Amaru was probably living here when he learned of the fatal illness of Titu Cusi and of his own accession to the throne of his ancestors. It should be called the Palace of the Emperor.

O
ur first task was to see whether excavation in the principal structures would lead to the unearthing of potsherds or artifacts which might throw light on the former inhabitants. Our workmen, who fully believed in the ‘buried treasure’ theory, started with a will. Tests made with a crow-bar in the Principal Temple enclosure resulted in such resounding hollow noises as to give them assurance that there were secret caves beneath the floor of the ancient temple. Amid the granite boulders under the carefully constructed floor our excavation was carried to a depth of 8 or 9 feet, but all this backbreaking work ended only in disappointment. Although we penetrated many crevices and holes between the boulders, there was nothing to be found; not even a bone or a potsherd.

Digging inside the Temple of the Three Windows had similar negative results. Later we carefully replaced and regraded the floor of the temple. But digging on the outside and below the three windows resulted in the discovery of an extraordinary quantity of decorated potsherds, pieces of vases and jars. Most of them lay from 2 to 4 feet under the surface of the ground. For centuries it must have been the custom to throw earthenware out of the windows of this temple. It is extremely doubtful if this building was ever used as a dwelling, since its windows were too large to permit of its being occupied by a people unaccustomed to sleeping in the fresh air and anxious to avoid all draughts. Were these pots, then, offerings to the gods? I cannot say. It
certainly does not seem likely that this great mass of sherds on the terrace under the three ceremonial windows was formed entirely by throwing perfectly good pots out of the windows. Possibly these bushels of sherds represent pottery broken in the course of religious ceremonies or in the drunken orgies which followed.

At the end of a week of hard and continuous labour we had not succeeded in finding anything except these sherds – no whole pots, no pieces of bronze, not a single ornament or utensil, not even a stray skull or human bone. It began to look as though our efforts to learn any more of the life of the builders of Machu Picchu than could be gained by a study of their architecture and small fragments of earthenware would be a failure. We then began to look for burial caves such as I had first seen at Choqquequirau. The Indians who lived here had been instructed by their
Patron
, Señor Don Mariano Ferro, the owner of the land, to assist us. They were undoubtedly thoroughly familiar with the whole mountain side and we asked them to hunt for burial caves. They went off for two days but their search yielded no results whatever. Could it be possible there were no graves at all? Remembering the success of the pecuniary rewards which we had offered the
gobernador
at Lucma, I offered a Peruvian silver dollar to anyone who could report the whereabouts of a cave containing a skull and would leave the cave exactly as he found it, allowing us to see the skull actually in position.

The next day all our workmen were released from excavations in a feverish hunt for burial caves. At the end of the day the half-dozen worthies who had followed us from Cuzco came slowly in, one by one, sadder and no wiser, their hopes of the coveted bonus destroyed. They had been tattered and torn by the thickets and jungles and baffled by the precipitous cliffs of Machu Picchu. One of them had split his big toe with a machete while hewing his way through the jungle. The thorny scrub and the ever aggravating bamboo vines had not only torn their clothes to shreds but had cruelly scratched their almost naked bodies. Unfamiliar with the region, they had found nothing. On
the other hand Richarte and his friends were more fortunate. It was not for nothing that they had been cultivating the ancient terraces. Furthermore, they had undoubtedly engaged in treasure hunting between crops. At any rate, they responded nobly to the proposed bonus and came back late in the day with smiling faces and sparkling eyes, none the worse for wear, and cheerfully announced that they had just discovered
eight
burial caves, and desired eight dollars! At the prevailing rate of wages on the sugar plantations this was more than the three of them could earn in a week.

These were two of the Indians who had found ‘nothing’ on the two preceding days. It was perfectly natural that they should not have been too eager to show us the sources of the pottery which from time to time they had sold to passing travellers. Furthermore, bad luck might attend their crops should they desecrate the bones of the ancient people buried in the vicinity. No possible amount of agricultural good luck, however, could compete with such a bonus as we had offered. Consequently they now exerted their utmost efforts and the results far exceeded our expectations.

The day after Richarte and his friends had reported the discovery of ‘eight burial caves’, Dr Eaton and I followed them across the ruins of the city and plunged down the wooded slope on the eastern side of the ridge until we reached a moss-covered ledge under which was a small cave to which our guides proudly pointed.

Sure enough here were the bones of a woman, about thirty-five years old, a representative of the middle coast region of Peru, and possibly one of those attractive types who were commanded by Inca Titu Cusi to attempt the seducing of the Augustinian fathers who wished to enter the city of Vilcapampa the Old.

Judging by the position of the bones, she had been buried in the usual contracted position, the knees drawn up under the chin. With her were buried the remains of her cooking pots and food vessels.

The second cave yielded fragments of two small adult skulls
but no pottery or bronze. In the third cave, my joy knew no bounds when I was able to lay hands for the first time at Machu Picchu on a perfect piece of Inca pottery. It was an excellent specimen of a two-handled dish, nicely decorated. This cave was divided into two parts by a stone wall. The outer section contained the skeleton of a woman about thirty-five years of age, the skull being of the oblong type usually found in the mountain regions.

Encouraged by what we had found in the first three caves the work was continued until our ambitious Indian guides had covered every accessible – and many seemingly inaccessible – parts of Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu Mountains and the ridge between. As the burial caves occurred generally on very steep rocky slopes, more or less covered with dense tropical jungle, the work of visiting and excavating them was extremely arduous. The work of the collectors, like that of the road builders, was several times interrupted by poisonous snakes. Nevertheless Richarte and Alvarez were unsparing in their patient, continuous searches. Practically every square rod of the ridge was explored, the last caves opened being very near the Urubamba river. In some of the caves only the most fragmentary skeletal remains were found; only the larger bones and a skull or two. Other caves contained not only nearly complete skeletons, but Inca-type pottery in a more or less perfect state of preservation.

More than fifty caves were opened under Dr Eaton’s personal direction and fully as many more were located and explored by his Indian helpers. The caves proved a veritable buried treasure for Richarte and Alvarez. Although the graves did not actually contain objects of gold, they did give forth a quantity of skeletal remains and artifacts which brought prosperity to the cheerful little Indians, who now secured in a week as much silver as they had formerly earned in the course of two months.

Some caves were divided into two or more compartments by thin partitions of irregular rock walls. Projecting ledges, overhanging boulders, and other rock shelters were taken advantage of in the effort to secure a relatively dry, safe place for the reception
of the mummy bundles. The front of the cave was sometimes, though rarely, closed by a roughly built wall of rocks and earth. When this wall was in good condition the bones of the skeletons were generally found lying on the surface of the cave floor, or in the shallow humus, just as they had fallen when the mummy wrappings decayed. Near the bones were often found artifacts, usually pottery, more rarely bone implements – weavers’ pointed tools made by grinding llama bones. Sometimes there were pieces of bronze. When the wall was in poor condition so that treasure hunters or wild beasts, bears or members of the cat family, could have entered, the bones and potsherds were likely to be found strewn about the cave or even outside the protecting wall. Sometimes the bodies had been actually buried underground, and then the front of the cave would be marked merely by a low wall or rough terrace. In a very few instances bodies were interred in crudely fashioned ‘bottle-shaped graves’.

The region near the first caves we opened I shall refer to as Cemetery No. 1. It lay halfway down the mountain side, north-east of the city, on the edge of a precipice 800 feet above the river. Under the boulders and ledges of this region the remains of about fifty individuals were found. Nearly all of them were determined by our osteologist, Dr Eaton, to be female, only four being clearly male. This was a very exciting and significant discovery. Apparently the last residents of Machu Picchu were Chosen Women, the ‘Virgins of the Sun’ associated with sanctuaries where the sun was worshipped.

A thousand feet south of the first cave, in a region east of the city, and from 200 to 600 feet below the end of the principal stairway, we found another group of burial caves. This we called Cemetery No. 2. It lies near the end of the outer city wall; in fact, one of the caves was only about a hundred yards from the lowest house. There was some evidence of earlier burials having been disturbed to provide room for the later ones. Here the remains of some fifty individuals were found. Only five or six appear to have been male. None were rugged individuals. Evidence began to accumulate that here had been a ‘University of
Idolatry’. Here the Chosen Women had been taught to weave beautiful textiles and made
chicha
for the Incas.

One day we located the burial place of the High Priestess, or
Mama-Cuna
, the Lady Superior of the convent, the person chiefly responsible for the training of the Chosen Women. It was a very sightly location on a rock-sheltered terrace on the slopes of Machu Picchu Mountain, about a thousand feet above the highest part of the ruins. The terrace was about 40 feet long, above some agricultural terraces, and connected with the highest by two flights of steps. It was almost completely overhung by an immense boulder which looked like a peaked crag of the grey granite mountain. The flat-faced projecting portion of the boulder was at least 50 feet high. The terrace was constructed largely of rock and gravel. Sheltered from the fierce noonday heat of the sun, it offered an ideal resting place for the Mother Superior.

Close to her bones we found her small personal belongings, her pottery, and the skeleton of her dog, a collie-like type bred by the Incas. Her possessions included two large bronze shawl-pins, bronze tweezers, two sewing needles made from plant spines, and a dainty and minute bronze curette with an ornamental head in the design of a flying bird. Besides some small fragments of fabrics of wool and vegetable fibre, there were two beautifully made jugs with human faces modelled and painted on the necks, a most unusual pattern. She also had a fine cooking pot, or beaker-shaped
olla
, carefully made and decorated with a snake in bas relief.

The most interesting object buried with this distinguished lady was a concave bronze mirror. Now a concave mirror is not only more difficult to make than a flat mirror, but is far less convenient to use. However, we know that on certain ceremonial occasions the
Mama-Cuna
, or Mother Superior of the Virgins of the Sun is reported to have ignited a tuft of cotton wool by concentrating the sun’s rays with a concave bronze mirror. Whether this can actually be done I do not know, but as Dr Eaton once said: ‘Even if the Priestess failed to ignite the tuft of cotton by the reflected rays of the Sun-God, the holy mystery
might have been made to seem very real to the assembled devotees, through a little legerdemain.’ Anyhow, it was not difficult to believe that the lady with the choice pottery, the collie dog, the toilet set, and the handsome concave mirror was one who had progressed far in the service of the Temple of the Sun. Pathological examination of the skeleton of this delicately formed woman shows that unfortunately she suffered from syphilis.

She was given a very beautiful resting place under the great rock and beneath a carefully constructed ceremonial terrace from which there is a magnificent view of the sacred city as well as of the wonderful canyon and the snow-capped peaks.

In view of the richness of the material buried with the priestess and her evident importance – no other grave contained anything like as fine garniture – and in view of our good fortune in finding this grave undisturbed although located in the most striking cemetery at Machu Picchu, it is worth noting that not a single article of gold was found here (or anywhere else). Gold must indeed have been extremely scarce if none could have been spared for such a
grande dame
as was here interred. Perhaps whatever gold she may have possessed had been confiscated and sent to form part of the ransom of the unfortunate Atahualpa, whose failure to fill a room full of gold for Pizarro cost him his life! On the other hand, since the Viceroy Toledo did secure some rich booty when he captured the last of the Incas, young Tupac Amaru probably took all the gold ornaments and vessels with him when he fled.