The Earliest and Greatest Engineers Were the Incans

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough treks to Peru to see how Machu Picchu was
built
In American universities, engineering students typically learn that military and civil
engineering originated in Europe, and they study the European tradition almost
exclusivelywith maybe a glance back at Egypt or China. But the Inca, whose great
era of imperial expansion ran roughly from 1438 to 1533, were also master builders,
and Smithsonian-affiliated researchers are now bringing their accomplishments to light.
I saw examples of Incan engineering prowess firsthand when I visited Peru in 2011. I
walked segments of what was once a 24,000-mile network of roads and gazed in
amazement at civil and religious works perched atop, or on the sides of, steep
mountains near Cuzco, the Incan capital. The structures at Machu Picchu are the bestknown of the Incan triumphs, but there is so much more.
In November, the American Indian Museum hosted a public symposium on Incan
engineering accomplishments and the lessons they hold for builders today, particularly
in the area of sustainability.
MIT professor John Ochsendorf, one participant, has become an authority on the rope
bridges built to traverse the gorges in the Andesbridges so awe-inspiring that upon
seeing them, neighboring peoples would sometimes submit to the Inca without a fight.
Later, conquistadors would be reduced to crawling, petrified, across the swaying rope
contraptions, although they could bear the weight of columns of soldiers.
Ochsendorf has studied historical records, built a replica bridge and visited the last
remaining Incan bridge, in remote Huinchiri, Peru. It is fashioned from native grasses
woven into threads, in turn braided into ever-bigger ropes. Each year nearby villagers
ceremoniously cut down the existing bridge, let it float awayits 100 percent
biodegradableand replace it.
Ochsendorfs tests suggest that the bridges main cables can support 16,000 pounds,
and he believes the cables of the sturdiest Incan bridges, incorporating leather, vines
and branches, could have supported 200,000 pounds.
Christine M. Fiori, associate director of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction at
Virginia Tech, began studying Incan roads five years ago, using tools like groundpenetrating radar. She expected to find deep foundations but didnt. How could they
have survived? Primarily because the Inca controlled water, Fiori says: They
observed its natural course and directed it, preventing erosion.
As someone who spent 35 years teaching engineering, I know we can learn much from
the Inca, who intuitively grasped how to build structures that harmonized with nature.
The engineering symposium is part of a broad effort at the American Indian Museum to
explore the complex relationship between Incan technology and culture that will
culminate in a grand exhibition, in 2015, devoted to the Incan Road.

Prowess: de
Gazed: conte
perched ato
steep: escar
triumphs: tr
hosted: orga
rope bridges
gorges: garg
bear: soport
crawling: ga
remaining: r
woven: tejid
grasped: ent