Machu Picchu in Context: The Inca Building Culture

Even today, and certainly in the past, the infrastructures built by Inca engineers appear extremely complex, even in their almost perfect geometric and harmonic articulation. The imposing structures incorporating stone blocks weighing several tons seem beyond the reach of men, whose level of technology never reached the Iron Age. Stone was undoubtedly the most widely used building material in prestigious architecture, including religious one, and in infrastructure, as well as playing a fundamental role in religiosity directly linked to the deities of the earth and the mountains. This work aims to be the first approach to a resume of the history of stone in the Inca empire, through the analysis of edited texts and original contributions of the authors, from the quarry to the fitting, through the description of practices, methods, processing techniques and labour management.