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Matthew LaCroix films a walk at Machu Picchu and treats the ridge as two building traditions. Irregular blocks with mortar, usually assigned to the Inca of the 1400s, look crude beside tighter granite he calls older. Those larger stones, some in the tens of tons, have no agreed lifting method. With Robert Edward Grant he points to a doorway aimed at true north, a marker for the sun. Nearby bosses look like hinges cut from one block and locked into another. A stair is cut from living rock and mostly broken. Inner walls show a half chakana, three levels each way, which he links to carvings in eastern Turkey and to triple openings. Scoop marks on a knobbed stone remind him of the unfinished obelisk at Aswan, and he guesses heat was used to shape it. Missing blocks, he says, record a quake, after which Inca builders repaired the top and reused the site. An open reading of the stone, he claims, recovers a civilization older than the Inca on this peak.
Key points
- LaCroix reads Machu Picchu as Inca repairs sitting on an older, tighter megalithic core.
- He calls the mortar and irregular blocks a 1400s style, and the largest granite a pre-Inca craft whose tools are unknown.
- A doorway shown with Robert Edward Grant faces true north, which he takes as a solar alignment.
- He links a half chakana, or step form, and triple openings on the ridge to carvings in eastern Turkey.
- Scoop marks remind him of the unfinished obelisk at Aswan, and he suggests heat as a way the stone was worked.
- Missing blocks and broken courses, in his view, record an ancient quake, after which the Inca rebuilt and reused the site.
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Short quotes
you can see the Incan work supposedly built in the 1400s that shows the irregular stone blocks crudely put together
Matthew LaCroix, LaCroix on the stones of Machu Picchu
He reads the rough mortared blocks dated to the 1400s as cruder than the tight granite. Watch at 3:10
the doorway itself faces exactly true north
Matthew LaCroix, LaCroix on the stones of Machu Picchu
The doorway, he says, is aimed exactly at true north. Watch at 7:09
Video by Matthew LaCroix. Watch on YouTube.