Inca Ritual Baths Studied in Peru

CUSCO, PERU—Live Science reports that ground-penetrating radar carried out by researchers from the Italian National Research Council and laser scans have revealed the foundations of buildings and two additional structures in Chachabamba, an Inca ceremonial complex located within Peru’s Machu Picchu National Park. The fifteenth-century site is known for its terraces, 14 baths laid out in two groups on either side of a sculptured sacred rock, and water system channels that carried water to the baths from a nearby waterfall. “This was undoubtedly a site of religious ceremonial use,” for the elites said Mariusz Ziółkowski of the University of Warsaw. Wastewater from the baths ran through a drainage system to a river in the lower valley. For more, go to “Machu Picchu's Stairway of Fountains.”