Sacred Valley
Oral histories in the Quechua language suggest that the ancient Inca married Pachamama (Mother Earth) and produced human offspring. The Incas are renowned for their precision in stone masonry. Architecture was a means of bringing order to untamed areas and people of the Andes region. Machu Picchu, located in the Sacred Valley, is an example of the Incas adapting building strategies that acknowledge the topography of the area. While other Pre-Columbian cultures constructed man-made mountains, the Incas emphasized the natural forms of the topography around them. The Sacred Rock, located in the Sacred Valley, is an example of stone that draws attention to the horizon of the mountain range.