Incan Aqueducts - Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu, the most famous and well preserved of Incan archeological sites, contains a complex aqueduct system. Construction of Machu Picchu began as an estate for nobility around the mid-1400s under Emperor Pachacuti. Incan engineers in Machu Picchu were able to use an ingenious stone collection system to increase the yield of the perennial spring that normally only had substantial flows as mountain snow melted in the warmer months. Without this innovation, the population of Machu Picchu would have been unsustainable. While the area received enough rainfall for agricultural production, there were few freshwater sources for domestic use. Water had to travel 749 m (about half of a mile) to reach the city center. The Inca exhibited a large degree of technological prowess in their careful gradation of the aqueducts. By cutting the canals out of one stone, lining canals with rock, and filling joints with clay, the Inca were able to reduce water loss due to seepage.

The water from this stream flowed into individual homes and then on to the city's religious center where it provided water for sixteen fountains, lending an additional visual and auditory aspect to life in Machu Picchu. Those fountains served as water sources for those houses not directly provided with water from the canals, but also were places of worship and ceremony. Those fountains are notable because they suggests that the flow of water was integrated into the city's planning at a very early stage, which demonstrated that the Inca had a very advanced concept of city planning and resource management.