Photos of The Temple of the Sun

This temple, built on top of a small cave, is the epitome of the ancient Incas' astronomy and architecture. The Temple of the Sun has a semi-circular shape that captures the movement of the sun due to its unique location and structure. At the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere on June 21 every year, the sun shines directly into the center of a large granite rock in the center of the temple through a small trapezoidal window. Astronomers and archaeologists speculate that this granite functioned as an Inca calendar. If you look out from this window in the temple, those who know more about constellations will notice the Pleiades, the constellation that represents a good harvest. In addition, some archaeologists speculate that the cave below the Temple of the Sun (Royal Tomb) once stored the mummy of Pachacútec, the ruler of the history of the Inca civilization. But Hiram Bingham found no mummy or human bone remains in the cave when he came here in 1919.