[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-08-10-at-10.12.31-AM-1.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tArchaeologists working near the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu have identified more than 1.5 miles of pre-Hispanic roads, as well as what researchers think could be agricultural terraces and platforms, hidden in the Andean cloud forest. The news was first reported by Heritage Daily<\/em>, following an August 10 announcement by Peru\u2019s Ministry of Culture.<\/p>\n \n\tThe structures were discovered using LiDAR\u2014an advanced remote sensing technology that can detect man-made features concealed by vegetation cover\u2014during preliminary survey work conducted in July. Notable among the findings is a road at least \u00be of a mile long with features, including a zigzagging route, characteristic of Inca construction.<\/p>\n \n\tArchaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built in the 1420s, likely as a seasonal royal residence, and abandoned sometime in the mid-1500s, around the time Spanish conquistadors invaded the Inca Empire. Though it is sometimes incorrectly called \u201cthe lost city of the Incas,\u201d archaeological evidence indicates that no more than 750 people lived in Machu Picchu at its peak, most of them essentially support staff to the royal family.<\/p>\n \n\tToday, Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage site and Peru\u2019s most-frequented tourist attraction, welcoming more than two million visitors annually. Nevertheless, much remains to be learned about its relationship to the surrounding area in pre-Hispanic times.<\/p>\n \n\tThe newly identified routes are the result of an inter-institutional collaboration between the University of Warsaw\u2019s Center for Andean Studies and the Decentralized Directorate of Culture of Cusco. Future studies will attempt to establish their age, construction methods, and what role they may have played in how people moved through and organized the territory around Machu Picchu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/lidar-reveals-hidden-pre-hispanic-roads-at-machu-picchu-1234794724\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-08-10-at-10.12.31-AM-1.jpg?w=1024″] Archaeologists working near the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu have identified more than 1.5 miles of pre-Hispanic roads, as well as what researchers think could be agricultural terraces and platforms, hidden in the Andean cloud forest. The news was first reported by Heritage Daily, following an August 10 announcement by Peru\u2019s Ministry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2088502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2088502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2088502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2088502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2088502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}