Peru -- Primarily Machu Picchu (Dec 2010)

Looking across at a group of buildings.

I'm not sure if the condition here is pretty much how Bingham found it, or if some reconstruction has been done. Even if reconstruction HAS been done, the fact that all the pieces are here shows that essentially none of the matereials have been carried off to be used as building materials at other locations. Many sets of ruins (such as the collosium in Rome) are no longer compete because for centuries they were used as quarries for materials for later buildings. Here there were no nearby settlements to use these stones.