Machu Picchu’s masonry is the quiet showpiece of the site. 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 centuries of Andean earthquakes.
Peruways’ guides walk you through three tiers of stonework. Rough fieldstone for the terraces. Coursed ashlar for ordinary buildings. Polygonal cyclopean work for the sacred structures. The grading matches the hierarchy of the buildings.
Below the surface: drainage channels running under the plazas, 16 linked water fountains fed from a mountain spring, and terraces engineered on layered gravel to drain winter frost.
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