I 



Photo by Hiram Bingham 

 THE WESTERN TERRACES AND THE STEEP WINDING STAIRWAY : MACHU PICCHU 



It was difficult to feed the thousands of people who at one time may have occupied 

 Machu Picchu, and everj^ square foot of available land was terraced off to provide a place 

 for the crops of Indian corn and potatoes, which were their chief resource. These terraces 

 were all connected by stairways, sometimes steep, narrow, and winding like the one on the 

 left, at other times consisting of a row of projecting stones in the face of the terrace, as is 

 the case in the second terrace below the lowest line of niches in this picture (pages 454-459). 



THE FIRST EXCAVATIONS 



Our workmen excavated with a will, 

 for the tests made with a crowbar gave 

 such resounding hollow sounds that they 

 felt sure there was treasure to be found 

 beneath the floor of the ancient temple. 

 In places the excavation was carried to 

 a depth of 8 or 9 feet, and practically 

 the entire floor of the temple was exca- 

 vated to a depth of 3 or 4 feet ; but all 



this back-breaking work ended only in 

 disappointment. There were many crev- 

 ices and holes between the boulders 

 under the floor, but nothing in them — 

 not even a bone or potsherd. 



Digging in the temple of the Three 

 Windows had a similar negative result, 

 but digging outside on the terrace below 

 the three windows resulted in a large 

 quantity of decorated potsherds. Most 



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