Compare and Contrast

By Justine Zitman

Machu Picchu was established around 1450-1540. The reason the land
was built was for a royal estate for the first Inka emperor, Pachacuti
Inka Yupanqui. The mountain is overlooking the Urubamba River in
Peru. It was intended as a place where the Inka emperor and his family
could host feasts, perform religious ceremonies, and administer the
affairs of empire, while also establishing a claim to land that would be
owned by his lineage after his death. The site features architecture,
from houses to terraces, built by carefully fitting individual stones
against each other. Terraces were a common element of highland
agriculture long before the Inka. Terraces were a common element of
highland agriculture long before the Inka. They increased the arable
land surface and reduced erosion by creating walled steps down the
sides of steep mountains. Each step could then be planted with crops.
Throughout Machu Picchu a system of stone channels drains water
from rainfall and from a spring near the site. Some of the water was
channeled to stone fountains. he walls were built of stones that had
been individually shaped to fit closely with one another, rather than
being shaped into similar units. This was accomplished by a laborious
process of pecking at the stones with tools, gradually shaping them so
that each stone was uniquely nested against those around it. Buildings
for people or activities of lower status were made using a rough
construction technique that did not take the time to shape the stones.
Machu Picchu clearly show the social divisions of the site, with most of
the high-status residential buildings in a cluster to the northeast. The
emperor himself lived in a separate compound at the southwest of the
site, indicating his unique status as the ruler.

The city of Cusco was established around 1440-1540. the city was
divided into two sections, hanan (upper or high) and hurin (lower),
which paralleled the social organization. Cusco was further divided into
quarters that reflected the four divisions of the empire, and people
from those sections inhabited their respective quarters of the city. city
was a map in miniature of the entire Inka empire, and a way for the
Inka rulers to explicitly display their power to shape and order that
empire. Some scholars think that the city was deliberately laid out so
that it was shaped like a puma, symbol of Inka might, but this is still
under debate. Local leaders from all sections of the empire also lived in
Cusco, often compelled to do so as a means of controlling their home
populations. Girls and young women were drawn from across the
empire to the capital to serve as cloistered women to weave fine cloth
for gods and nobles and to make corn beer for religious rituals, to serve
gods in shrines, and in some cases to be given to Inka favorites in
marriage.

Both the City of Cusco and Machu Picchu were towns that different
levels of people lived. The tows had divisons for the people that lived
there, depending on which class they were in, higher or lower.