Introduction Historical context Traditional history History according to archaeology History of Pachakutec Chronology The natural setting About the disoccupation when discovered Description of Machu Picchu Wayna Picchu and the temple of the moon Reconstructing the past The productive activities Historical context History of Pachakutec According to what we know of his history, Pachakuteq was the Inca who, after the defeat of the Chancas around 1420 - 1430, began the expansion of the sinchi of Cuzco - his dominion previously only took in the region of the Vilcanota River - to start Tawantinsuyu. Pachakuteq was, then, the founder of the Inca empire. The Chancas, who lived northwest of Cuzco, were neighbors and traditional enemies of the Incas. As part of their ancestral practices, during the mandate of the Inca Viracocha they had laid siege to Cuzco. The Inca songs tell of mythic encounters between the warriors of both nations in which stones turn into men and the gods help the heroic defenders of Cuzco. Finally, Cusi Yupanqui, one of the Cuzco leaders and the son of Viracocha, assumed command of the war and conquered the Chancas, the moment at which he was enthroned as Inca Yupanqui and baptized as Pachakutec ("he who returns the earth"). Since then he initiated the expansion of Cuzco and founded Tawantinsuyu, which included extensive territories which embraced from the yungas of Chimor, or Chimu, to the señorios that already existed around Lake Titicaca. Maria Rostworowski suspects that Pachakuteq was born in Cusicancha, Cuzco, from which came his original name of Cusi Yupanqui. He belonged in his infancy to the Iñaca Panaca, but later founded the Hatun Ayllu, to which his descendants are assigned. According to Juan de Betanzos, who wrote his chronicle before 1550 and who perhaps saw the mummy of the Inca, "only today his body was in Patallacta which from his members seems that he was in his life a man of good height and great stature about whom it is said died at the age of one hundred twenty years". Jose de Acosta, who saw the mummy, says that "he had in his head a dent which they gave him with a stone in a certain war and he was white-haired and did not lack hair". After being crowned as Sapan Inca, Pachakuteq conquered the region of the Tampu, where the park of Machu Picchu is found, and there ordered the sanctuary built.