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SPANISH VERSION

INTIHUATANA

Where the sun is tied

One of the biggest mysteries of the Inca Culture is the Intihuatana located on the platform of the Three Windows Temple in Machu Picchu. Thousands of tourist feel the energy of this stone monument, similar to an obelisk in miniature, which seems to concentrate all the strength of the well-known Inca citadel of Machu Picchu.

    The sun was probably tied here for being their father and their god or because they did not want him to go, or they just wanted to make the day last longer and then be able to work in their fields opening holes in the fertile valleys or growing the products of the Mamapacha with more hours of sunshine.

    Intihuatana or "tie the sun" used to be repeated by those men coming from Abancay, the land of the God who talks, to the top of the Huascar�n, the highest snow peak in Peru, when they narrate this old legend born in the pre Hispanic period when the Andean world was dominated by the Inca.

    God was the main divinity in the Inca Empire. It was responsible for healthy crops and it was the father of Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, the founders of the Empire. Therefore several temples and sanctuaries were held for its worship.

    The legend is currently present in the highlands of Peru and told by hundreds or maybe thousands of men of several races describing peculiar monoliths used as "sticks" for God.

    It is believed that one of these "sticks" can be found at the Three Windows Temple in Machu Picchu, the greatest Inca citadel protected by the Inti or the Sun, the powerful god who managed to avoid strangers until being discovered in 1911 by the American Hiram Bingham.

    Intihuatana, the name of this peculiar obelisk. Is it just a coincidence? an innocent Homonymous ? or it is about a place where the Incas pretended to tie the Sun as it was said in the old legend told by the Andean man?

    Beyond the mysticism involved, this Monolith shines at the presence of tourists in the most visited archaeological complex in Peru. Those who put their hands or their head over this sculpture feel an inexplicable strength emerging from its four intersections.

WHERE THE MYSTERY SHINES
    The Intihuatana is a mass of granite carved in prism shape and its four vertices aiming at the cardinal points. The obelisk is on a total area of 8 metres and 60 centimetres located in a small platform next to the Three Windows Temple, an Inca observatory in the Citadel of Machu Picchu.

    Tons of questions are made around the existence of this strange sculpture. Its origin and purpose is still covered with the mysterious veil of history, though some scientists state it was a worship sanctuary where "the sun was tied" as it won't never stop shinning. If so, life will be extinguished and the end of their children will come.

    There are also some people who said that the Intihuatana was a solar clock. They used it to calculate the time and the seasons according to the shadows appeared when the Sun was over the Sculpture. It is also considered as an external space signal, a sign of aliens who often visited the earth. Legends adding even more mystery.

    Although there are no answers denied, we are only certain about the energy freely realised and surrounding all the visitors who just by curiosity or searching spiritual renovation go up the 78 stone stairs leading to the "stick" where God's Children tried to tie their father and their God in order to assure it will never stop shinning in their ostentatious Empire.