14 Fun Facts About Machu Picchu

14 Fun Facts About Machu Picchu
Author: Jeannie Meekins
Publisher: Learning Island
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2015-01-16
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN:

Machu Picchu is one of the few surviving ruins of the Inca Empire. It is situated in tropical forests on the eastern side of the Andes Mountains. It stretches five miles across a ridge and sits on top of two earthquake fault lines. The Spanish invaded South America looking for gold. They killed the Inca people. They destroyed their cities, but they never found Machu Picchu. How much do you know about this Inca treasure? How many years was Machu Picchu inhabited? How do the walls of Machu Picchu "dance"? Who really discovered Machu Picchu? Where does Machu Picchu get its water? Find out more about this famed ancient city and amaze your family and friends with these fun facts. Ages 8 and up. All measurements in American and metric. Reading Level: 6.7 Educational versions include exercises designed to meet Common Core Standards. LearningIsland.com believes in the value of children practicing reading for 15 minutes every day. Our 15-Minute Books give children lots of fun, exciting choices to read, from classic stories, to mysteries, to books of knowledge. Many books are appropriate for hi-lo readers. Open the world of reading to a child by having them read for 15 minutes a day.

Lost City of the Incas

Lost City of the Incas
Author: Hiram Bingham
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2010-12-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0297865331

First published in the 1950s, this is a classic account of the discovery in 1911 of the lost city of Machu Picchu. In 1911 Hiram Bingham, a pre-historian with a love of exotic destinations, set out to Peru in search of the legendary city of Vilcabamba, capital city of the last Inca ruler, Manco Inca. With a combination of doggedness and good fortune he stumbled on the perfectly preserved ruins of Machu Picchu perched on a cloud-capped ledge 2000 feet above the torrent of the Urubamba River. The buildings were of white granite, exquisitely carved blocks each higher than a man. Bingham had not, as it turned out, found Vilcabamba, but he had nevertheless made an astonishing and memorable discovery, which he describes in his bestselling book LOST CITY OF THE INCAS.

20 Fun Facts about Machu Picchu

20 Fun Facts about Machu Picchu
Author: Janey Levy
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2013-12-30
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1482404532

Provides information about Machu Picchu, including such facts as the lack of an Incan writing system and that the whole structure was built without mortar.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu

Turn Right at Machu Picchu
Author: Mark Adams
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2011-06-30
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1101535407

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING TRAVEL MEMOIR What happens when an unadventurous adventure writer tries to re-create the original expedition to Machu Picchu? In 1911, Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and “discovered” Machu Picchu. While history has recast Bingham as a villain who stole both priceless artifacts and credit for finding the great archeological site, Mark Adams set out to retrace the explorer’s perilous path in search of the truth—except he’d written about adventure far more than he’d actually lived it. In fact, he’d never even slept in a tent. Turn Right at Machu Picchu is Adams’ fascinating and funny account of his journey through some of the world’s most majestic, historic, and remote landscapes guided only by a hard-as-nails Australian survivalist and one nagging question: Just what was Machu Picchu?

Inca Land

Inca Land
Author: Hiram Bingham
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2017-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1387191195

"The builders were not in search of fields. There is so little arable land here that every square yard of earth had to be terraced in order to provide food for the inhabitants. They were not looking for comfort or convenience. Safety was their primary consideration. They were sufficiently civilized to practice intensive agriculture, sufficiently skillful to equal the best masonry the world has ever seen, sufficiently ingenious to make delicate bronzes, and sufficiently advanced in art to realize the beauty of simplicity. What could have induced such a people to select this remote fastness of the Andes, with all its disadvantages, as the site for their capital, unless they were fleeing from powerful enemies."

Inca

Inca
Author: Lawrence Kovacs
Publisher: Nomad Press
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2014-01-07
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 161930144X

Revealing legends and legacies, Inca: Discover the Culture and Geography of a Lost Civilization with 25 Projects offers engaging insight into the continent-sprawling ancient Inca culture. The text and activities invite learners on a journey along the Inca Trail. They'll visit the city of Cuzco and the majestic Machu Picchu, built on a jagged ridge thousands of feet above the Urubamba River. Kids will learn about cultural beliefs, rituals, scientific advances, and languages. They'll create Salar de Uyuni salt crystals and build a tropical cloud forest. This captivating educational tool also features unique illustrations, informative sidebars, fun-fact questions, and vocabulary that will interest readers from start to finish.

Cradle of Gold

Cradle of Gold
Author: Neil B. Chambers
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2011-07-05
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0230112048

Christopher Heaney takes the reader into the heart of Peru's past to relive the dramatic story of the final years of the Incan empire, the recovery of their final cities and the fight over their future. Drawing on original research in untapped archives, Heaney portrays both a stunning landscape and the complex history of a region that continues to inspire awe and controversy today. --from publisher description

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu
Author: Johan Reinhard
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2007-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1938770927

Machu Picchu, recently voted one of the New Wonders of the World, is one of the world's most famous archaeological sites, yet it remains a mystery. Even the most basic questions are still unanswered: What was its meaning and why was it built in such a difficult location? Renowned explorer Johan Reinhard attempts to answer such elusive questions from the perspectives of sacred landscape and archaeoastronomy. Using information gathered from historical, archaeological, and ethnographical sources, Reinhard demonstrates how the site is situated in the center of sacred mountains and associated with a sacred river, which is in turn symbolically linked with the sun's passage. Taken together, these features meant that Machu Picchu formed a cosmological, hydrological, and sacred geological center for a vast region.

Lost City

Lost City
Author: Ted Lewin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2003-06-02
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1101652772

Caldecott Honor-winner Ted Lewin takes readers on a thrilling journey to the wilds of Peru in this story of Hiram Bingham, who, in 1911, carved a treacherous path through snake-filled jungles and across perilous mountains in search of Vilcapampa, the lost city of the Incas. Guided the last steps by a young Quechua boy, however, he discovered not the rumored lost city, but the ruins of Machu Picchu, a city totally unknown to the outside world, and one of the wonders of the world.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu
Author: Richard L. Burger
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0300097638

Details the status of contemporary research on Incan civilization, and addresses mysteries of the founding and abandonment of Machu Picchu, charting its archaeological history from 1911 to the present.