The Temple of the Condor

This guide to the Temple of the Condor at Machu Picchu explains how Inca stonemasons shaped two natural rock faces and a carved beak stone into the wings and head of a giant condor, a bird tied to the Inca upper world of sky and stars. It follows what researchers found beneath the wings, a narrow cave with channels for liquid offerings and fragments of fine ceramics and cloth, and the nearby cells with trapezoidal doorways that some early explorers once mistook for a prison. Kneel at the base of the two great slabs to see the wings frame you from either side.