The Gods of Machu Picchu Trivia Quiz

Answer: The sun

Inti was the Inca sun god, bringing warmth, light, and energy to the people of the Andes. Because the Inca believed gold was the literal sweat of the sun, they imagined Inti as a radiant and golden figure. He is often shown as a golden disk with a human face surrounded by bright, blazing rays. He was the most important god of the empire because the Inca emperors claimed to be his direct, living children on Earth, which gave them the divine right to rule.

At Machu Picchu, Inti was extremely important. Almost the entire city was designed to track his movements, featuring the Temple of the Sun (seen in the photo), where windows perfectly align to catch the winter solstice sunrise. A unique monolith there is the Intihuatana Stone (translated to the "Hitching Post of the Sun"), which is a sacred carved rock high up in the ruins. Priests would hold ceremonies there to symbolically tie the sun to the earth, ensuring Inti would never abandon them and would keep returning to warm their land.

Answer: Lake Titicaca

Viracocha was the supreme creator god of the Inca, the master architect who brought order to a chaotic universe by shaping the sun, moon, stars, and humanity. According to legend, he emerged from Lake Titicaca's deepest depths in a time of absolute darkness, immediately creating light and commanding the celestial bodies to rise into the sky for the very first time. He was viewed as a wise, wandering man who often traveled the Andes disguised as a humble beggar to teach humans language, agriculture, and civilized laws.

While history credits Emperor Pachacuti with the construction of Machu Picchu, legends say that the city was actually built by Viracocha's own hands, molding the mountain ridge and stacking the giant, mortarless stones with divine ease. To the Inca, the precision of the architecture (where massive boulders are fitted together so perfectly that not even a knife blade can slide between them) seemed impossible for mere mortals.

Answer: Silver

Mama Killa was the beautiful and protective Inca moon goddess, ruling over the night sky, the lunar calendar, and the sacred cycles of marriage and childbirth. She was also revered as the divine defender and mother of all women. The Incas believed that silver was made of her fallen tears, and they envisioned her as a glowing silver disk with human features. Her changing phases tracked the passage of time, allowing priests to accurately schedule their most important religious festivals and agricultural seasons.

At Machu Picchu, Mama Killa is honored at the hidden Temple of the Moon. Tucked away inside a natural granite cave on the steep flanks of Huayna Picchu mountain, this temple showcases her connection to the dark, nighttime, and subterranean worlds. The temple features masonry built directly into the living rock of the cave, including ceremonial niches where royal mummies and silver offerings were placed. There is also a large central altar where priests gathered to track her lunar light as it crept into the cavern.

Answer: Mountains

The Apus were the powerful, living spirits of the surrounding mountain peaks, revered by the Incas as the guardians of the land, weather, and local communities. Rather than a single deity, the Apus were a collective of sacred mountain spirits, with the highest peaks considered the most powerful of all. The Incas believed these mountains were watchful ancestors who controlled the flow of water from their glaciers and held the power to unleash devastating landslides or bring gentle rains.

At Machu Picchu, the Apus (represented as mountains) are not just a beautiful backdrop but are one of the main reasons the city was built at this location. The sanctuary is nestled between towering peaks like Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu Mountain, which the Incas worshipped as living gods. To honor them, the city's builders crafted the architecture to echo the landscape. As an example, the Sacred Rock is a spiritual altar to honor the Apus. Its top edge was sculpted to perfectly mimic the jagged silhouette of Mount Yanantin directly behind it, allowing priests to make offerings to a physical mirror of the peak.

Answer: Terraces

Pachamama was the Mother Earth goddess of the Inca, celebrated as a living deity who sustained all life by providing soil, water, and bountiful agricultural harvests across the steep slopes of the Andes. She was the physical earth itself, a nurturing and powerful mother who required deep respect, leading the Incas to offer her daily gifts of coca leaves and beer to keep her happy and ensure their crops would thrive.

At Machu Picchu, Pachamama's physical presence is celebrated through the cascading stone agricultural terraces that sit on the rugged slopes of the mountain ridge. Rather than forcing nature to bend to their will, the Inca architects worked in harmony with her body, carefully shaping the hillsides into fields like stepping stones. This engineering did more than just honor Pachamama and help grow sacred crops; it also safely distributed rain and prevented catastrophic landslides.

Answer: 16

Illapa was the Inca god of thunder, lightning, and rain. He was seen as a fierce warrior who wore bright, flashing robes and wielded a heavy golden sling. The Incas believed that the crack of that sling created thunder, the reflection off his shiny clothing produced lightning, and he drew water directly from the Milky Way to crack open the sky and pour rain down onto the earth.

At Machu Picchu, Illapa was an important deity as the site, high in the cloud forest, is frequently slammed by intense tropical thunderstorms. Because the city was built on a steep ridge completely exposed to the elements, the Incas designed the entire complex to withstand and respect Illapa's power. Every thatched roof was steeply pitched to shed his heavy downpours, and a legendary stone canal system was built to handle the influx of rainwater he sent. As the canal enters the city walls, it feeds directly into the top of a fountain sequence; the water pours out of a stone spout into the first basin, drains out through a small channel in the floor, and immediately drops down to become the spout for the next fountain below, repeating this process 16 times down the hillside.

Answer: Corn

Mama Sara was the gentle Inca goddess of grain and her name means "Corn Mother". She is revered as the divine protector of this crop. Corn was not only a key part of the daily diet but also the essential ingredient used to brew chicha, which was a sacred beer required for almost every religious ritual and festival. The Incas believed Mama Sara physically manifested herself inside the fields, viewing unusually shaped ears of corn or stalks with multiple heads as living, sacred dolls of the goddess herself.

At Machu Picchu, Mama Sara's spirit showed herself on the agricultural terraces surrounding the central plaza, which were reserved for growing elite crops. The corn harvested from these royal fields was considered blessed and was entirely dedicated to brewing the massive amounts of chicha needed for the lavish religious ceremonies hosted at the site. This sacred beer was kept in giant ceramic jars and used by priests as a ceremonial offering to pour directly onto the altars of the sun and mountain gods.

Answer: The Royal Tomb

Supay was the Inca god of death and the ruler of the underworld, a realm known as Uku Pacha. The Inca underworld was a dark but essential part of the cosmos where the dead resided and all of the earth's mineral wealth (like gold) was born. Supay was a fearsome but necessary deity of balance; the Incas respected him deeply and offered him sacrifices to ensure the safe passage of their ancestors and to maintain harmony between the living and the dead.

At Machu Picchu, Supay's underworld domain was accessed through the natural caves, deep crevices, and shadowed grottos that cut into the mountain. His presence is represented in the subterranean cavern located directly beneath the Temple of the Sun, often referred to as the Royal Tomb. This beautifully carved mausoleum features staggered and large stone niches where the mummified bodies of Inca nobility were kept. By placing their ancestors in these chambers, the Incas bridged the sunlit world of the living with Supay's underworld, ensuring their mummified leaders remained active participants in the spiritual life of the bustling city above.

Answer: Mama Cocha

Mama Cocha was the powerful Inca goddess of the sea, lakes, and all moving waters, revered as the source of all moisture and life who kept the oceans calm and blessed the rivers with an abundance of fish. The Incas believed that all water on Earth was interconnected from the oceans, through the underworld, and up into the high mountain springs.

At Machu Picchu, Mama Cocha literally wraps around the entire city in the form of the Urubamba River, which encircles the base of the mountain ridge. The site is directly above a dramatic loop in the river, so it appears that the water goddess is embracing the sacred mountain from thousands of feet below. Rather than pulling water from the river itself, the Incas honored the goddess by building a stone canal system to draw from a natural mountain spring (which they believed Mama Cocha pushed up from the earth). This allowed her river to flow through their city before cascading back down into the river loop below.

Answer: Earthquakes

Pachacamac was the Inca god of time, fate, and earthquakes, who breathed life into the very first human beings and held the power to destroy the world with a single tilt of his head. As a primeval god originating from the coastal regions before being absorbed into the Inca culture, he was considered an omnipresent force too powerful to be represented by a human statue. The Incas feared and respected him because he controlled the unpredictable shifts of the earth, meaning a single moment of his anger could trigger devastating tremors that would instantly level cities.

At Machu Picchu, Pachacamac's power over earthquakes dictated the entire architectural design of the city, forcing the Incas to invent an entirely new, disaster proof way of building. Because the city sits directly atop two major, active geological fault lines, the architects knew that standard mortar would crack and collapse under tremors, so they engineered the famous ashlar masonry technique. This meant shaping massive granite stones to fit together perfectly without a single drop of mortar. These stones were intentionally cut with inward sloping angles and interlocking joints that allowed them to literally bounce in place during an earthquake before settling right back into their original positions.