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The Field Museum
www.fieldmuseum.org
1400 South Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60615
312.665.9410
Machu Picchu:
Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas
October 15, 2004–February 13, 2005
Susan Weinrebe, Guest Contributor
November 20, 2004 (Following text assisted by Field Museum Program Notes).
Machu Picchu, retreat of an Inca emperor, “lost” for nearly 300 years, lies revealed once again in the exhibit, “Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas”, currently at Chicago’ Field Museum now through February 13, 2005.
The Field Museum has long been famed for its vivid constructions representing the people, animals and elements of nature. In this exhibit, long-standing techniques of dioramas and models, a wealth of artifacts plus the panache of interactive technology bring to life the essence of the “Cloud Fortress” as Machu Picchu has been called.
Life-size scenes and a video pace the traffic flow as visitors enter a series of alcoves and corridors to learn the story of Hiram Bingham III, a Yale University professor, and his quest for the rumored site high in the Andes of Peru. A mélange of original photographs and a film simulation reenactment reminiscent of Indiana Jones document his original findings of over 100 small caves, burial sites in his first expedition in 1911.
These graves and their buried goods gave him the impetus to return in 1912 and some of his cameras and equipment as well as artifacts from his discovery are displayed. A modern observer must admit the tenacity of Professor Bingham in his quest to find this abandoned city, but the museum notes forthrightly state that even for the 20th century, Bingham’s excavation techniques were flawed. His documentation was poor and he failed to apply contextual meaning to what he uncovered. With this disclaimer properly noted, one is still awed by the achievements revealed in the rest of the exhibit.
To view what an ancient Inca would have seen, a wall-to-wall photograph brings us to the terraced, fortress-like structure of Machu Picchu, set 8,000 feet high among swirling clouds and jagged unscalable peaks. It was here, Bingham surmised, the Sapa Inca, leader of the empire known as “Land of the Four Quarters”, during a period of time parallel with the European Renaissance, would have gone with six hundred elite and retainers to take his ease from the formal affairs of state, not so different than our president’s Camp David or the White House Ranch!
A replicated wall cast from portions of Machu Picchu’s masonry permit touching while walking among the massive blocks that illustrate an architectural style using trapezoidal entryways topped by multi-ton lintels, niches for storage, and angled surfaces to enhance the play of light. Searching for mortar will be to no avail. Apparently none was used reminding us that huge engineering feats may be accomplished given enough hands to labor through sufficient time.
Interspersed throughout the exhibit is a balanced presentation of short videos, display cases, signage and models in settings depicting an aspect of life or labor at Machu Picchu. However, the movement of visitors seemed to be problematic. There were no places to sit amongst the displays and at times this reviewer wished the museum had been more generous in its allotment of space and consideration for those who mightn’t be able to walk or stand without respite.
Still, there were amazing artifacts beckoning one onward. Huge earthenware jars surfaced with a shell motif echoing the design of the seafood thought to be loved by the gods. Gold and silver, symbols of the sun and the moon were worked into bird-headed cups, ornaments and a row of tiny long-beaked birds. Hummingbirds? Implements demonstrating hunting and tools of daily life, music and cooking and more of what one expects to find of such displays.
More detailed presentation was made of textiles woven from alpaca and vicuna fibers valued even more highly than precious metals. “Chosen Women” created these cumbi used as gifts to gods, ancestors and newly conquered groups. Clothing both original and replicated as in the vignette of the Sapa Inca marked status, indicated cosmology and ethnic identity. And today, do we not use our luxury goods to do much the same?
The Incas were grand brewers of cincha, corn beer, an important component of feasts and offerings as Early Spanish accounts document. Fermented in huge pottery jars, aryballos, like the three displayed, the beverage was an expected provision by anyone who gave army service, worked in state fields or participate in building the 25,000 mile web of roads linking the Inca empire.
Without a written language, the Sapa Inca kept records with a quipu, a series of knotted strings whose spinning, color and spacing translated into the quantities of tribute, population and even genealogy. An example of such a counting device is displayed to its six-foot plus length on the wall facing the scene in which the emperor clothed in elegantly recreated garb receives a retainer who is showing him a quipu. Again, there was a sense of “being there” so beautifully conveyed was this moment employing articles of household use, life-like figures, garments and the architecture of the little room itself.
The highlight of the exhibit was the Virtual Exploration of Machu Picchu. With three computer stations and a large screen keyed to the last computer, the user-friendly program actually put one on dozens of locations in Machu Picchu. It was an eerie and thrilling feeling to move about this ancient site via an excellent photographic tour of the fifteen sites named by Bingham. It was the next best thing to being there.
Moreover, one could click on a choice of “Scholar’s Insight” and experts in art, astronomy or architecture explicated the screen visual. The use of architecture to track the summer solstice was profoundly awe inspiring. Or, “Expedition Photos 1911-12” presented voice-overs with a selection of Bingham’s original photography. This reviewer wished such a program could have been applied to all the artifacts on view.
Today, the many-terraced ascent to the topmost part of Machu Picchu, once covered with food-producing plants for the sustenance of the royals and their retainers supports only grass. Quechua, the language of the ancients, is still spoken by living Incas today. When Pizarro executed Atahualpa in 1532 during the Spanish Conquest and Old World disease decimated indigenous people, it is believed that the emperor abandoned Machu Picchu to be overcome by high mountain forest.
Slumbering with its secrets for over four hundred years, Machu Picchu is once again revealed to those whose interests bring them to this intriguing exhibit. Poignantly, it ends with a display of “Four Colonial Paintings of Inca Kings” used to prove the once lofty line of descent and history of nobles whose empire was no more.
The museum link www.fieldmuseum.org provides ongoing research and videos (including beer making) into the Inca Empire as well as a very high quality aide for teachers, “Machu Picchu Educator Guide”.
Photo courtesy of Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
Photo courtesy of Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
Photo by Michael Lawton
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