The stonework at Machu Picchu is the site’s quiet showpiece. In the ceremonial zones — the Temple of the Sun, the Royal Tomb, the walls of the Sacred Plaza — stones are cut so precisely they hold without mortar, and the joints have survived five hundred years of Andean earthquakes.
Peruways’ licensed guides walk you through the three masonry tiers used across the site. Rough fieldstone for the terraces. Coursed ashlar for ordinary buildings. Polygonal cyclopean work for the sacred structures. The grading of stonework matches the hierarchy of the buildings.
Below the surface is the engineering: hidden drainage channels, 16 water fountains fed in sequence from a mountain spring, and terraces built on layered gravel to drain winter frost.
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