Marcahuamachuco – a site of massive Pre-Incan ruins in Peru dating back 1,600 years – is still shrouded in mystery and is slowly being unearthed by archeologists, but may soon be the country’s newest tourist destination.
Studied since the early 1900s, it was only recently that the brush was cleared away revealing the full size and shape of the historic settlement, and now experts hope they can get the site ready for sustainable tourism, with the goal of getting it registered as a World Heritage Site.
Overshadowed by the better-known Machu Picchu, Marcahuamachuco is impressive in its own right. Spanning over 590 acres it sits on a plateau 12,000 feet high in the Andes mountains. A walled-in fortress to keep out invaders, the complex was home to a whole community, with stone buildings, galleries, a plaza, dwellings and a religious center, all built between 350 and 400 A.D.
Experts still aren’t sure who lived there, where they came from or why they left, but it is known that the center had its own language and even its own gods.