Machu Picchu is younger than Notre-Dame Cathedral.

  • Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu
Credit: © earleliason—iStock/Getty Images
Author Bess Lovejoy

May 14, 2026

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Perched high in the Andes, Machu Picchu feels like a relic from the deep past — a lost city swallowed by clouds and time. But despite its ancient aura, it’s actually younger than one of Europe’s most famous medieval landmarks: Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Construction on Notre-Dame began in 1163, and the cathedral rose over the next two centuries into a defining example of Gothic architecture. By the time it was finished around 1345, it had already become a centerpiece of Parisian religious and civic life. 

Machu Picchu, by contrast, dates to the height of the Inca Empire in the 15th century, likely built as a royal estate for the emperor Pachacuti. For decades, historians placed its construction around 1450, but newer research using radiocarbon dating suggests the site may have been occupied as early as the 1420s (and possibly even a little earlier, as scientists continue refining the timeline). Still, Notre-Dame stood for centuries before it.
The comparison highlights two very different historical trajectories. While European builders were perfecting cathedral construction in the Late Middle Ages, the Inca were developing their own sophisticated architectural traditions in the Andes, shaping stone so precisely that structures could stand without mortar. But eventually, Machu Picchu was abandoned around the time of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Spanish chronicles don’t mention Machu Picchu.

When Spanish conquistadors swept through the Inca Empire in the 1530s, they left behind detailed written accounts of the places they encountered — but Machu Picchu is nowhere to be found in those records.

That silence has long puzzled historians. One leading theory is that the remote mountaintop site, tucked deep in the Andes above the Urubamba River, simply escaped the Spaniards’ notice. Another possibility is more intriguing: that Machu Picchu may have served as a kind of refuge during the early years of Spanish conquest, where some Incas could retreat beyond the reach of colonial forces.

There’s no definitive proof for that idea, and many scholars think the site was likely abandoned around the time the Spanish arrived, as the political and economic systems that sustained it collapsed. Still, the lack of any mention in colonial chronicles remains striking — especially for a site of such scale and sophistication.

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