Intihuatana, Urubamba
archaeological site in Peru
Intihuatana (possibly from in the Quechua spelling Inti Watana or Intiwatana), at the archaeological site of Machu Picchu, is a notable ritual stone associated with the astronomic clock or calendar of the Inca in South America. Machu Picchu was thought to have been built c. 1450 by the Sapa Inca Pachacuti as a country estate. In the late 16th century, the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo and the clergy destroyed those Intihuatana which they could find. They did so as they believed that the Incas' religion was a blasphemy and the religious significance of the Intihuatana could be a political liability. The Intihuatana of Machu Picchu was found intact by Bingham in 1911, indicating that the Spanish conquerors had not found it.
Intihuatana was damaged on September 8, 2000 when a crane being used in an ad shoot toppled over and chipped off a piece of the granite.
Design
The Intihuatana of Machu Picchu was carved directly into the bedrock of the mountain's summit area. It is characterized by complex surfaces, planes and angles whose purpose at this time is unknown. Featuring a slightly inclined plane at its top, an upright stone column tilts 13 degrees northward.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q76737966. Authority coordinates are -13.163, -72.546. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1450, 1911 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Intihuatana, Urubamba” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.