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Machu Picchu was an emperor's private retreat

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Backpackers love to project ancient mystical prophecies onto Peruvian ruins, but the historical reality is far more bourgeois. Archaeologists widely agree that Machu Picchu was constructed as a sprawling, heavily staffed royal estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti. It was essentially the 15th-century equivalent of a billionaire's secluded mountain retreat, complete with elite landscaping and private bathhouses.

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Machu Picchu was an emperor's private retreat
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