Machu Picchu is at least 20 years older than expected!

You may have seen this and thought 20 years doesn't sound like much, but it is and here's why. 1/9 🧵 Image
Machu Picchu is often thought of as the 'lost city' of the Inca.

But it isn't actually a city, it was built as an estate for Emperor Pachacuti. 2/9
Emperor Pachacuti paved the way for the Inca to rise from a city-state to the most powerful empire in pre-Columbian America. 3/9

📷: Depiction of Pachacuti in the 17th century second chronicles of Martín de Murúa. Image
He was thought to have risen to power in AD 1438 and started conquering places - including where Machu Picchu is.

This is where the original estimate of Machu Picchu's age comes from. 4/9

📷: Conquests of the Inca on this timeline Image
But new radiocarbon dates indicate Machu Picchu was in use from AD 1420-1530.

This means Emperor Pachacuti must have risen to power and starting conquering things decades earlier than thought. 5/9

📷: Machu Pichu at the time the samples used in the new study were found. Image
It's not just rewriting the date of a single event or a building's construction. All that important early history is changed too.

It would be kind of like finding out Julius Caesar came to power 20 years earlier than thought. 6/9

📷: Or that this was Caesar
This would also raise the question of how we got the date wrong for so long.

In this case, the previous age of Machi Picchu comes from Spanish records. These are also the source of much of Inca history, but this new find is challenging their reliability. 7/9
So moving Machu Picchu's age by 20 years might not sound like much, but it could have long-lasting implications. 8/9
If you want to find out more, the original research is 🆓:
cambridge.org/core/journals/… 9/9 Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with 🅰ntiquity Journal

🅰ntiquity Journal Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @AntiquityJ

18 Jun
🆕 #archaeology: People in early medieval Europe kept reopening graves. What was thought to be isolated events, like grave robbing, is actually a regular part of funerary traditions from the 5th – 7th c. AD

Here's an #AntiquityThread on the work (🆓) buff.ly/3wLOSuE 1/🧵
📷: Reconstruction of a chamber grave from eastern France

Note: This thread may feature some skeletons 2/
“For over 100 years, archaeologists in many European countries have discovered graves from the early medieval period which look like they were robbed... 3/

📷: Very small grave robbers, by L. Jay, courtesy of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology.
Read 17 tweets
28 Apr
Stonehenge is a magnificent monument, so we've put together a special collection of research into the site spanning nearly 100 years of study! 🪨

Here's an #AntiquityThread on some highlights from it (🆓) buff.ly/2NlXiag 1/ 🧵
One of the biggest recent discoveries about Stonehenge is that some of the monument's bluestones were originally part of Waun Mawn - another stone circle, over 200 km away in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿. 2/

📷: Remains of Waun Mawn
Most of the stones of Waun Mawn have been removed, but excavations of the empty stone holes was still able to identify key links with Stonehenge. 3/

🔗 to this research (🆓) doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2…
📷: One of the stone holes
Read 12 tweets
15 Apr
🆕 #archaeology: A 'missing link' in alphabet history has been discovered, as archaeologists working in 🇮🇱 have found an ancient bit of writing that helps fill a gap in its early history.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on the find, published today (🆓) buff.ly/2Q2HTNR 1/🧵
Researchers had previously found evidence of the alphabet developing in the Sinai peninsular, around 1800 BC and eventually spread to the Levant around 1300 BC. 2/

📷: An early example of the alphabet from Sinai
From there, it began to spread around the Mediterranean, eventually developing into the Greek and Latin alphabets. 3/

📷: A lovely bit of ancient Greek alphabet, by Marsyas / CC BY 2.5
Read 17 tweets
14 Apr
It's #DolphinDay so of course we have to share this amazing Roman mosaic of Cupid riding a dolphin from Fishbourne @romanpalace

📷 by Tony Hisgett / CC BY 2.0 Image
The palace is the largest residential Roman building discovered in Britain and has a massive number of amazing mosaics to match.

📷: Some of the wide-spanning mosaic floors, by Nigel Richardson / CC BY-SA 2.0 Image
Many of the mosaics - including the delightful dolphin - were discovered during excavations in the 1960s, after a trench for a water-main exposed building material.

🔗 to the excavations being reported in Antiquity (£) doi.org/10.1017/S00035…
📷: One of the mosaics being dug up Image
Read 5 tweets
12 Feb
🆕 #archaeology: Some of Stonehenge appears to have originally been part of a Welsh stone circle that was dismantled & moved 280 km to Salisbury Plain ~3000 BC.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on research published today in Antiquity (🆓) buff.ly/3rFcVsf 1/🧵
The discovery was made at the Waun Mawn site in the Preseli Hills of Wales, close to the quarries some of Stonehenge's bluestones came from. 2/

📷: Excavations at Waun Mawn
The researchers had previously identified that some of Stonehenge's bluestones came from those nearby quarries.

However, they found the stones were extracted before construction started at Stonehenge. 3/

📷: One of the quarries under excavation
Read 16 tweets
1 Dec 20
🆕 #archaeology: It has been suggested a devastating tsunami submerged Doggerland ~10,000 BC. However, new analysis reveals the lost landscape survived this catastrophe.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on research published today in Antiquity (🆓) buff.ly/3mpoPnV 1/ 🧵
This event, known as the Storegga tsunami, was triggered by a giant submarine landslide in the North Sea ~8,150-years-ago. Over 3200 km3 of sediment was displaced. 2/

📷: The location of the landslide, by Lamiot / CC BY-SA 3.0
The resulting gigantic waves were a catastrophic natural disaster of a scale the region has not seen since – evidence of the tsunami has been found up to 80 km inland in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 3/

📷: Tsunami sediment (grey upper layer) from Maryton on the Montrose Basin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 by Stozy10 / CC BY-SA 3.0
Read 15 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(