The sacred Valley of the Incas in the Andes, the Urubamba Valley, is the birthplace of the Inca civilization. Thanks to its good location, the valley was fertile and climatic, even at a time when other regions of modern Peru were plagued by years of drought. Researchers believe that it was the ease with which the valley provided its population with food that enabled the Inca tribe in the 11th century to free some people from agriculture, begin to conquer the surrounding areas and establish the Great Empire of Tawantinsuyu (Tawantin Suyu, Tawantinsuyu, Tawantinsuyu in Quechua, means “four sides of the world united together”).
The archaeological complex of Pisak is one of the most important in the Valley. It is located 33 kilometers from Cusco on the Vilcabamba Range. In the Inca architectural tradition, cities were built in the shape of a sacred animal or bird – the outline of the Pisac resembles a partridge. Pisac consists of two parts: the city proper and the temple and agricultural terraces. This town is also famous for its astronomical observatory. The Incas buried their dead in a rock next to the city – mummies have been found here, sitting in the fetal position (a pose in which the dead were placed for birth in another life).
In addition to the part of the city preserved from the Incas and located high on the mountain, there is the colonial part of Pisaca. It is a town built by the Spaniards in the valley of the Vilcanota River (which is known as Urubamba in its lower reaches). It was built as a reservation where the conquerors settled the Indians to control them and convert them to Christianity.
This town is about 90 kilometers from Cuzco. Inca Pachacutec conquered this settlement, destroyed the old buildings and built new houses and a ceremonial center. The town is on the way to the jungle and from here the Inca resistance leader Manco Inca Yupanqui retreated with his treasures and ancestral mummies to the legendary city of Vilcabamba (which was never found).
Ollantaitambo is significant in that it is one of the very few Incan cities still inhabited. Some of the buildings in the modern city date back to the late 15th century. The layout of the city and the organization of life are also interesting: the main part of the city had a trapezoidal layout with four longitudinal streets that were crossed by seven shorter parallel streets.
All the buildings in the southern half of the town were a kind of dormitory: four one-room “apartments” connected by a common patio (courtyard). Several families lived there. The town still has a water supply system built under Pachacutek.
Near the town there are terraces for farming, and on the slopes of the mountains around Ollantaitambo there were granaries that can still be seen today. They were built at high altitude, where the strong wind and lower temperature meant that food and grain were better preserved and protected from rotting.