Funerary Rock
Machu Picchu, Perú
The Inca civilization, as one of the most advanced civilizations in the history, shows us today its amazing progress and development in each and every corner of the Citadel of Machu Picchu. The civilization has been well known for their number of different deities that the city would worship its Gods through celebrations, sacred rituals and human sacrifices. The representation of the different times of the life of the city has been shown in their many artifacts, statues, carvings and images throughout the whole city, showing how Machu Picchu was the most sacred site for the Inca civilization, civilization which saw itself more closely to their gods from this sanctuary in the Andes.
The character of sanctuary, Machu Picchu was exclusively built to accommodate the higher classes of the aristocracy in the social hierarchy of Andean civilization, a fact which has been able to provide explanation continuing celebrations held at the Citadel with both religious and civic or social reasons: sacred rituals to increase fertility, prayers for praying to the different meteorological phenomena, celebrations by the arrivals of the seasons summer, as well as congregations of citizens and various Incan deities sacrifices and ceremonies.
The fact that the Inca civilization had the practice of multitude of doctrines, some of them as important as weather, astrology, architecture or even medicine, is has been to comprehend thanks to their different constructions, symbols and buildings, all of them always closely relate with one of these already mentioned disciplines. The funerary rock is one of these important symbols for this civilization that represents what today is known as the practice of forensic medicine, therefore this civilization was the practice of mummification of corpses.
The rock funeral home, located in the agricultural sector of the city, took its name from the different scenarios of the expert community of anthropology after multiple discoveries of mass graves with human remains. The rock has a symbolic character that led to the entry of the necropolis of the Citadel of Machu Picchu. Its proximity to this cemetery gave the character of Idol, so the area where might have come to host large numbers of funeral ceremonies and religious offerings of the city.
The funerary rock represents the chapel sanctuary of the city of Machu Picchu. Archaeological findings have been able to explain that the rock funeral home was designed to serve as a chapel which he presents common elements of this type of buildings. You can see a series of steps that form a small tier as well as the existence of a large ring which resembles the design of a ring.
Because of its burial character, this building was designated to accommodate the process of mummification through the embalmed corpses drying procedure. However, other theories have tried to explain that the rock funeral home had a close relationship with the study of the stars and more particularly of the Sun, the light of this refusal in it during the Ibiza the year, phenomenon that could have been part of the religious beliefs of this civilization.
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