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Who Influenced Machu Picchu?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Who Influenced Machu Picchu?
    Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 14:10
I have this report due and the topic is to explain who had more of an influence on Machu Picchu, the Aztecs or Incas?  Can anyone tell me who was and why?  Furthermore, can someone give me some kind of online reference (this one is preferred) or book that points to whom was more influential because I am having the most difficult time getting this topic to any kind of likely conclusion.  I'm really stuck and don't know who was more influential...
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Posts: 762 		  Quote konstantinius Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 16:53
Not an expert on the subject but the general oppinion I've derived is that the two cultures had contacts, traded, and fought border wars, but they developed independently of each other and along different climactic and topographic conditions (i.e. andean highlands vs. mexican wetlands). I think that the Incas also lacked the sacrificial element in their religion, a major cosmological difference, if I'm correct. So, I tend to see Machu Picchu as uniquely Incan. Also, when you say "influenced" you mean architecturally, culturally, or both?
Where's our Latin American "expert", pinquin? He's more suitable to speak on the issue. 
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 17:42
Well, I really appreciate your response konstantinius....greatly appreciated.  But I'm speaking more in terms of architecturally than culturally.  But of course if I can argue for both it would raise my grade significantly on my paper.  And if it so happens that both cultures influenced them in different aspects (structurally and culturally), then that would definitely impress my professor as I gave a lot of thought into the matter. 
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Posts: 1378 		  Quote Ikki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 18:18
Mesoamerican and andines cultures had little, very little contacts friends.

And Machu Pichu was a 100% incan city.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 19:04
Macchu Picchu was just another satelitte city of the Inca Empire. A refuge they developed in case of invasion of other native american groups with which the Incas has problems in the past. Everything in Macchu Picchu is Inca, from the buildings to the engineering.
 
Aztecs simply lived too far away.
 
Now, there was some trade between Panama and the Inca empire, particularly of giant sea snail shells, which were imported from Central America and send by in balsa wood rafts (remember the Kon Tiki of Thor Heyyerdal) to Ecuador. From there were send by feet to places like Cusco and the Titikaka. Those shells were used like trumpets in the Inca ceremonies.
 
So, it is possible that a small number of goods or ideas could cross from the Mesoamerican region to the Andes, but not in mass at all. From all practical terms, the Aztecs were as far from the Incas like the Europeans from the Chineses.
 
Omar
 
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Posts: 10226 		  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 19:25
The Inca had a different stoneworking style from the Aztec as well.  Where the Aztec methods were just as valid from an engineering standpoint, the Incan's had a more developed sense of Craft. 
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 19:49
Yes.
 
The incas and Aztecs belonged to the two main cultural areas of the Americas, the Peruvian and the Mesoamerican, respectively. For all purposes, those cultural areas were isolated.
 
Sometimes I wonder what would happened if Peruvians and Mexicans entered in contact before. Writing and wheels for example could have spread to Peru, and Llamas, hunging bridges, seagoing vesels and thousand of other technologies could have reached Mexico. Perhaps that could have started a new age of achievements that could have prompted the Amerindians civilizations to a more advanced level of development.
 
It didn't happened, and the Europeans came first, bringing with them a civilization that was, in material and technological terms, superior to the Amerindian, and replacing that in a relatively short time. Truncating forever what could have been some of the most original civilizations in the planet.
 
When I see the archaelogical remains of those great ancient people I feel pain about that. It is imposible to forget them living in theirs ancient lands.
 
Pinguin
 
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Nov-2006 at 06:08
On line references to Macchu Picchu:
 
 
 
This is a tourism site:
 
 
National museum of Peru (Spanish)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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