MACHU PICCHU'S URBAN SECTOR
THE SACRED PLAZA
West of the quarry is found the Sacred or Main Plaza of Machu Picchu, which is the biggest one. It is at the northwest of the complex, at the foot of the Intiwatana. It was the site of the popular ceremonies and, perhaps also, of the Inti Raymi or Sun Festivity, just like the Plaza Mayor (Main Plaza) of Cusco. Near this plaza there are terraces that were apparently not used for crop growing. It is thought that they were simply built to harmonize the rough profile of Machu Picchu, and afford flat ground for people to attend public spectacles, or for planting flowers, or for some other obscure purpose unknown to the scholars.
THE THREE-WINDOWED TEMPLE
Facing this, some 8 meters in front of the Sacred Plaza, at the extreme north of the complex, lies the Three-Windowed Temple. Here there is also a great, partially carved stone which must have been its central column; nowadays some guides describe it as a sacrificial altar.
It consists of only three walls and an adobe roof. Its stones are polygonal. It was probably of comparatively lesser importance than the Main Temple. The evidence shows this temple originally had five windows, the two currently non-existing windows were added to the wall after the Temple had been built. In the central part of the front wall there is one stone column as a support for the roof, while on the western side there is a carved stone with figures representing the three levels of the Andean World: the Hanan-Pacha (the sky, or spirituality), the Kay-Pacha (surface of the world, or materialism) and the Ukju-Pacha (underworld, or inner life). This temple's existence persuaded Bingham that he had found the Tamputoco, a mythical place that historians indicate as the origin of the Inca civilization. However, this hypothesis is only a part of the legend. The Main Temple has a room with two windows sided by "drystane" pirka walls, now called the Priests' House.
It is on the east of the Main Plaza. It has a rectangular ground plan. Its name is derived from its typical trapeze-shaped windows. Returning to Bingham's hypothesis, the Three-Windowed Temple would be apparently a symbolic representation of the Tamputoco or "Three Window Hill" from which, according to the myth of the Ayar Brothers, the Incas emerged on the day of creation.
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