Orientation Theater
Visitors enter a theater equipped with high-definition video projection, a surround-sound system and a panoramic screen. A seven-minute video provides an overview of Peruvian geography, the story of the rise and fall of the Incas, Machu Picchu in its prime and the rediscovery of the site in 1911 by Yale University historian and explorer Hiram Bingham III. Visitors are asked to join Bingham on his search for the “lost city,” and the theater is filled with the sights and sounds of the cloud forest. The theater screen lifts to reveal Inca walls in the distance.
Encountering Machu Picchu
As visitors leave the theater, they find themselves transported back to Machu Picchu in 1912. A diorama shows Bingham photographing the site, while a Peruvian member of his team unearths Inca relics. A cave contains burial artifacts that were found by Bingham 92 years ago. Nearby lie actual items that were used by Bingham, including his cameras, trunk, diary and letters. Inca objects typically found in Machu Picchu 's burial caves complete the display. A flipbook offers visitors a chance to thumb through a selection of expedition photographs. Additionally, a time line graphically explains the Inca Empire in relation to the broader context of world history.
Curator's Tour of Machu Picchu
As visitors enter the “Curator's Tour” section, the lights dim and a large-scale three-dimensional model of Machu Picchu lights up. A six-minute video presentation informs the audience about what is known of Machu Picchu . On screen, curators Richard Burger and Lucy Salazar give an overview of the site and the way it functioned in Inca times. The audience learns through this presentation that Machu Picchu was not an Inca city, as was once believed. Instead, it was a royal retreat or country palace, which was used by the Sapa Inca and his guests as a place where they could rest, relax, feast, hunt and engage in ritual activities related to his divine rule. Each section on the model lights up as the curators discuss it, and recent photos appear on the screen to illustrate the discussion. At the end of the presentation, the room brightens revealing graphic panels on the historic 1931 aerial photographs of Machu Picchu made by the Shippee-Johnson Expedition and recent satellite imagery of Machu Picchu that utilizes wavelengths of light not visible to the human eye.
The Inca Road
Visitors travel back another 550 years into Machu Picchu in its glory days. Walking down a re-creation of an Inca roadway, visitors see a breathtaking panoramic view of Machu Picchu . An immense highway system connected every city and administrative center in the Inca Empire. In this section, visitors view replicas of beautiful Inca masonry walls and the paved roadway. While walking toward two large Inca stone doorways looming before them, visitors learn how the Inca communicated a message of power to their subjects through their architecture. Small jewel-like cases containing precious artifacts of stone, silver and gold used by the Inca elite occupy the center of the room. Other fine Inca objects of wood and pottery are featured in cases set in the trapezoidal niches of the Inca wall, offering a rare overview of Inca artistic production.
The Ruler's House
Visitors enter the king's residence, one of the most sacred and important areas of Machu Picchu. Visitors walk through a trapezoidal entrance in the front of a stone house thatched with native Peruvian ichu grass. This gives access to the king's residence. The visitor finds a diorama of the Sapa Inca having a conversation with an administrator while being attended by a servant. All three are dressed in colorful woven costumes, and the emperor wears an elaborate headdress and jewelry replicated by traditional Peruvian craftsmen. The administrator holds a quipu , a knotted string object used to document the Inca economy and other aspects of imperial life. By entering the house, the visitor triggers a soundscape featuring the natural sounds of Machu Picchu, as well as a conversation in Quechua—the language of the Incas—between the administrator and the ruler. This section also features a rare authentic quipu, precious objects from Machu Picchu and other ancient Inca sites and a rare stone model of Inca architecture.
Daily Life
Outside the ruler's house are a series of displays showing various aspects of daily life at Machu Picchu using artifacts found during the 1912 expedition to Machu Picchu. The first cases feature Inca textiles, their most valued objects, and the tools used to spin and weave at Machu Picchu. The next section focuses on the production and consumption of corn beer (chicha) , the crucial drink of an Inca feast and religious ceremonies. The third focuses on the production of metal objects at Machu Picchu. A re-created scene of a metalworker at work dramatizes how the Inca practiced their craft. Tools and metalworking debris, metal artifacts and metalworking tools from Machu Picchu are displayed in this area. A fourth section focuses on Inca religious beliefs and rituals, drawing on archaeological evidence for ancestor worship, rituals related to celestial observation and beliefs related to the sacred landscape. This section illustrates these themes with artifacts recovered by Bingham from Machu Picchu and others acquired in Cuzco. A short, four-minute video on archaeoastronomy exposes the visitor to Inca ideas on the sky and how these celestial concepts shaped Inca worship at Machu Picchu. A long wall of cases display evidence of other daily activities carried out at Machu Picchu, including feasting, cooking, dancing, musical presentations and gambling. This section also presents the ceramic evidence for the multiethnic composition of the crafts specialists and other retainers who made up the majority of the population living at Machu Picchu.
Interactive Exploration
In this section, three computer stations allow visitors to view the different parts of Machu Picchu at their own pace and according to their interests. Visitors can discover artifacts electronically and call up material as they travel through the site. A large overhead video screen allows classes or groups of visitors to follow the self-guided tours.
Ongoing Investigations—The High-Tech Explorer
Leaving the world of Machu Picchu, the visitor enters a modern laboratory setting where they learn about sophisticated methods of scientific analysis that are being used to study the Machu Picchu collections today. Examples of metal, pottery and stone artifacts that have been analyzed can be viewed, and graphic panels discuss a range of the scientific findings, including those related to long-distance trade, health and ancient diet. On the laboratory desk surfaces are replicas of skulls from Machu Picchu illustrating different styles of cranial deformation, which served as markers of ethnicity, and a forensic reconstruction of the deformed skull of a young woman from Machu Picchu; the latter permits the visitor to see the face of one of the residents of Machu Picchu. A short video presents the perspectives of the several scientists who have studied the Machu Picchu collections.
Machu Picchu Epilogue
This final section answers questions about why Machu Picchu was abandoned and what happened to the Incas following the Spanish invasion. Post-conquest drinking vessels, a colonial Inca-style tunic and a colonial Inca-style stool (tiana) illustrate how Inca cultural traditions continued after the Spanish conquest. A graph of the demographic collapse in the Andes shows the impact of Old World diseases on the defeat of the Incas. The exhibit concludes by showing how intermarriage and the melding of Inca and other cultural elements resulted in the modern cultures that exist today in Peru and other Andean nations, illustrated by black-and-white photographs of contemporary Andean ceremonies of Yawar Fiesta and Qollluriti.
Peruvian Community
A special Denver Museum of Nature & Science display recognizes the local community of Peruvian nationals and descendents. The Museum has worked with the Regional (nine-state) Peruvian Consul General Marita Landoveri to highlight annual celebrations, participation in sports such as the Bolder Boulder and significant events sponsored by Peruvian leaders throughout the region.
Wright Video
Denver-based hydrological engineer Kenneth R. Wright and Ruth Wright have spent more than a decade researching the engineering marvels of Machu Picchu. Working in collaboration with the Peruvian government, they have researched Inca construction methods, restored the complex water supply and drainage systems and helped to clarify our understanding of this incredible site. This video caps the visitor experience of the exhibition by delving into unknown, seldom-seen parts of Machu Picchu, bringing it alive through the eyes of the Inca engineers and planners.
Hidden Treasures: Inca Dig Site—Level 2 of the Museum
Visitors are transported to another place and time, walking through a cloud forest into a community of long ago. Friendly llamas greet you. Mock ruins inspire curiosity and visions of what life was like in an Inca village. Visitors will
- Wind their way through a labyrinth of stone walls
- Discover the former dwellings of Inca individuals
- Unearth artifacts left in the rooms of these individuals and try to piece together clues
- Compare and contrast the dwellings of two Inca inhabitants, trying to figure out what their lives may have been like.
- Visit the archeologists' workbench and learn about everyday objects that you can uncover in your excavations.
- Climb high onto the terraces and be a farmer planting potatoes or a guard keeping look-out.
- Build an Inca wall and learn just how precise Inca construction was.
- Sift through an ancient trash pile to reveal more tiny clues.
Touch Carts
Three touch carts in the Museum will feature touchable objects from the Education Collections. The themes of the carts are Llamas, Comparison of Pre-Columbian Cultures, and Music and Instruments from the Andes.
