Considering the radically different quality of stonemason work in older structures, and in lower parts of structures, used by Incas, it is hard to understand why historians insist everything in Peru was built by Incas immediately preceding the Spanish invasion. It is often quite easy to distinguish later Inca repairs from masterful original construction.
Pushing back use of Machu Picchu a few decades is fine, but I think they still have nothing material to suggest when construction began. It could have been built a thousand years before, abandoned, and then re-occupied and repaired later.
It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.
> It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.
Yeah the "partial restoration" always rubbed me the wrong way, basically choosing an arbitrary level of insufficient repair and maintenance.
If the residents of Machu Picchu were alive today, how would they feel about their city being half-assedly fixed? Why not just rebuild the city to the best of your ability true to its original architecture and building methods? It's arguably a disgrace as-is.
I have similar feelings about the pyramids in Egypt. Calling them "historic ancient ruins" seems like a convenient excuse to neglect repairs/maintenance and let them slowly deteriorate back into the earth. Get on it, show us what the pyramids are supposed to look like at their finest! I hear their flat stone faces would gleam in the sun.
I would love to see the gleaming pyramids! But I can’t help but think of Cecilia Giménez’s well-intentioned repair of Ecce Homo (the Jesus fresco).
For historical sites with any mystery, even a restoration done with skill and care would create some fiction while destroying evidence that could be used in the future. Earlier eras were filled with this kind of sanctioned, inquisitive vandalism - the Victorian fascination with mummies is especially relevant. There’s a lot we won’t ever learn because of that early enthusiasm.
I’m not advocating doing nothing with historical sites. I’m just more comfortable with preservation than reconstruction that replaces the original. If they want to build a brand new set of pyramids, using original construction methods and designed to match, just do it off to the side a little bit and I’m all for it.
The important thing is that we learn all that we possibly can from the ancient structures.
Then, I would agree with restoring and maximally using these structures for modern purposes. If ancient Egypt persisted, the pyramids would have changed as well. Change shape, color, purpose. Who knows.
Change is integral to life and trying to keep something the same for millenia just for the sake of not changing it, is unnatural.
But alas, we don't know what we don't know. This is the major argument in the way of ever abandoning these structures as archeological sites and to shift them to modern use.
Having been to parts of the Greta wall that were fully “repaired”, keep in mind what you’re asking would most likely make it seem like it was from Disneyland or a cheap facade.
How does replacing the fascia stones, putting the originals in a museum protecting them from further erosion in the elements, destroy all archaeological value of the pyramids?
The Inca repairs theory is not well supported by evidence. Incas used smaller stones for detailed elements higher up and larger stones for basic elements lower down. Along the same lines, most of Machu Picchu is earthworks that support the structure and landscape terraces and that has an even more mysterious relationship to the buildings on top.
The difference is not the size of the stones, but the quality of workmanship. You could imagine the competent masons doing most of the building, and leaving the top bits for the apprentices to slap together in a hurry, but it would be a stretch. The more plausible scenario is earthquake damage displacing upper courses, to be repaired and added onto some unknown time later, maybe centuries.
We need those surface luminescence studies to get some objective facts to work with.
Only way to do that would be if there was organic matter trapped when it was constructed. At least that is my understanding of this regarding carbon dating.
It would be possible to do surface-luminescence analysis, which reveals when a stone surface was last exposed to sunlight. But I have not heard of any such done in Peru.
Only a few Egyptian samples were analyzed, that seemed to place them 500 years "too early". There seems little enthusiasm to follow up. Most specialists see little value: either the results match what is already believed, or they show that everybody but a few cranks were wrong. The first is a waste of precious grants; the latter a big nuisance.
Wherever you got your information from is either greatly outdated or outright wrong. Thermoluminescence dating is quite possibly the single most used dating method in modern archaeology. It's used anywhere and everywhere funding and preconditions allow it to be.
Yet, as I said, barely used on Egyptian constructions.
Most archaeological contexts are less fraught with obnoxious cranks (who might be right about the timeline, but for all the wrong reasons!), and so are correspondingly more open to factual input. And, have fewer career results at risk from newly obtainable facts.
Well that’s not reassuring for the field of archaeology … Couldn’t the ‘cranks’ just pool together some funds and do the testing to settle the debates?
The GP is incorrect regarding how frequently TL dating is used. However, in general you have destructively test something in order to TL date it or work sampling into your excavation plan upfront. For obvious reasons, archeologists typically don't give 'cranks' access to archived materials to destroy, nor do they typically consult them when designing their excavation plans.
TL is very unevenly used, and mainly where nobody has already staked a claim as to how old the thing is. Proving senior investigators wrong is a good way to interfere with getting tenure. After they retire is considered a better time to find out if they were right.
Pushing back use of Machu Picchu a few decades is fine, but I think they still have nothing material to suggest when construction began. It could have been built a thousand years before, abandoned, and then re-occupied and repaired later.
It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.