Inca builders at Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park

Sieczkowska D.; Anna K.-S.; Bastante J.M. · Archaeometry (2023) · DOI: 10.1111/arcm.12849

Resumen

Knowledge about the Inca measurement system is based on information from the colonial chronicles and modern studies of the 16th-century Quechua dictionaries. Based on those texts, we can presume that the Incas used an anthropometric system of measurement adopted from the proportions of the human body. Using cosine quantogram analysis and statistical verification, it is possible to verify the existence of the measurement system used by the Inca architects. For this purpose, a measurement series of architectural and water infrastructure elements were collected from 3D point cloud of the Chachabamba and Machu Picchu settlements in Machupicchu National Archaeological Park.