When Hiram Bingham arrived at Machu Picchu in July 1911, accompanied by the local farmer Melchor Arteaga and a boy who showed him the way, the first thing he described enthusiastically in his field notes was not the panorama of the terraces or the silhouette of Huayna Picchu. It was this structure: a stone wall with three large trapezoidal windows aligned along the same axis and facing east.
Bingham called it the Temple of the Three Windows and wrote that this discovery alone justified the expedition. It was not an exaggerated reaction. The wall is one of the most impressive structures in the archaeological site, and the three openings that define it have no known equivalent anywhere else in the Tawantinsuyo.
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Where it is and how to get there
The Temple of the Three Windows is part of the complex known as the Sacred Plaza, in the urban sector of Machu Picchu. It is located in the central area of the citadel, between the Main Temple also called the Great Temple and the staircase that leads up to the Intihuatana.
From the main entrance of the archaeological site, access is direct through the standard route. It does not require climbing to the viewpoints or detouring to alternative circuits. The Sacred Plaza is one of the mandatory points in all the circuits authorized by the Ministry of Culture, which means the temple is visible to almost every visitor to the site.
The architecture: the wall and the windows
The defining element of the temple is its eastern wall, a stone wall almost ten meters long that still stands with remarkable solidity after several centuries. In it there are three large trapezoidal windows arranged symmetrically at the same height. They are the largest windows in all of Machu Picchu.
The trapezoidal shape wider at the base than at the top is characteristic of high level Inca architecture. This type of opening was more resistant to seismic movement than a straight sided window because it distributes structural loads more effectively across the wall. In practice, Inca buildings with trapezoidal windows have survived earthquakes that destroyed colonial constructions built on top of their foundations.
The quality of the stonework is comparable to that of the Temple of the Sun: carefully shaped blocks, polished surfaces, and tightly fitted joints without mortar. At the base of the wall, however, there is something unusual. Beneath the windows, the wall rests on exposed bedrock that was neither removed nor leveled. As in the Temple of the Sun, the builders integrated the natural rock outcrop into the design of the structure.
The wall has only three sides: the eastern façade with the windows, the northern wall, and the southern wall. The fourth side, the western side, is open toward the Sacred Plaza. This absence of a wall is not an omission or the result of a collapse. It was a design decision. The interior space was conceived as a semi open enclosure in direct connection with the plaza.
The number three and Inca cosmology
The most common question about this temple is why it has exactly three windows and not two, four, or five. The explanation most widely accepted by archaeologists points to Andean cosmology and the concept of the three worlds or three levels of existence.
In the Inca worldview, the universe was organized into three levels: the Hanan Pacha, the upper world, the celestial space where the main deities lived; the Kay Pacha, this world, the plane of living beings and nature; and the Uku Pacha, the underworld, the realm of the dead and subterranean forces. These three levels appear repeatedly in Andean iconography, origin myths, and the organization of ritual spaces.
The association between the three windows and this cosmic tripartition is a hypothesis, not a certainty. But it gains additional support from a sixteenth century chronicle written by the Dominican friar Juan de Betanzos, who recorded the Inca origin myth as it was told to him by informants from Cusco. According to that account, the first ancestors of the Incas, the Ayar siblings, emerged into the world from a cave called Tampu Toqo, which had three windows. That cave is identified in oral tradition with the hill of Pacariqtambo, south of Cusco.
Bingham’s hypothesis: was this Tampu Toqo
When Hiram Bingham read the colonial chronicles and found the reference to the cave with three windows, he drew a direct connection with what he had seen at Machu Picchu. In his later writings, especially in his book The Lost City of the Incas, published in 1948, he defended the hypothesis that Machu Picchu was, or was very close to, the mythical place of origin of the Incas.
This theory had a huge influence on how the site was presented to the world for decades. It was also widely debated and, in its most literal form, rejected by most later archaeologists. The current consensus places Pacariqtambo in a different geographic location and considers Machu Picchu to have been built during the reign of Pachacuti in the fifteenth century as a llaqta, a royal estate rather than a mythical place of origin.
What can be said is that the presence of three windows in a building of this importance is not arbitrary. The symmetry, the scale, and the temple’s position within the sacred complex indicate that it was designed to convey a specific message. Whether that message explicitly referenced the myth of Tampu Toqo or simply incorporated the symbolism of the number three in a broader ritual context is still debated by specialists.
The eastern orientation and the sunrise
The three windows face east. This orientation is not accidental in a site where solar astronomy played a central role in the organization of space. From inside the temple, on the days of the equinox, the first rays of sunlight enter directly through the windows and pass through the enclosure in a straight line.
This phenomenon has been documented by researchers such as the archaeoastronomer Gary Urton, who pointed out that the alignment of the temple with the sunrise on the equinoxes is too precise to be accidental. However, unlike the Temple of the Sun where the alignment creates a specific lighting effect on a marked stone, in the Temple of the Three Windows there is no clear focal point inside the enclosure that receives this light in a distinct way.
The eastern orientation may respond to both astronomical and symbolic logic. The sun rises in the east, and temples dedicated to Inti or to ancestors frequently open in that direction to receive the first light of the day.
The Main Temple: the neighboring building
The Temple of the Three Windows does not stand alone in the Sacred Plaza. A few meters away, on the same platform level, is the Main Temple, also called the Great Temple, which is actually the largest and most important structure in that sector.
The Main Temple has an exceptional northern wall with large stone blocks perfectly assembled. Inside there is a stone bench attached to the wall that Bingham interpreted as an altar. The southern wall of this temple shows a subsidence at its base, possibly caused by seismic movement, which archaeologists have documented but not structurally corrected.
Visiting the Temple of the Three Windows without paying attention to the Main Temple next to it would mean seeing only half of the complex. Both structures form a spatial and probably functional unit within the Sacred Plaza.
What to observe during the visit
There are several details worth noticing when approaching the temple:
- The size of the windows: they are noticeably larger than any other opening at the site. From the outside, the proportion between the wall and the windows gives a better sense of the real scale of the building, which photographs often distort.
- The bedrock at the base of the wall: the natural rock outcrop on which the eastern wall rests is visible from inside the enclosure. The lower portion remains unworked, in contrast with the perfectly finished stone blocks resting on top of it.
- The open fourth side: from inside the temple, looking west, the Sacred Plaza opens directly in front of the visitor. This opening toward the plaza suggests how the space may have been used during ceremonies, with the interior and exterior connected.
- The view through the windows toward the east: if the visit takes place early in the morning, the light entering through the windows illuminates the interior in a way that completely changes the perception of the space.
Schedule and practical considerations
The Temple of the Three Windows is included in the standard visiting circuit and does not require additional permission. Access inside the enclosure is allowed, although visitors must not touch the walls or stone blocks.
Early morning, between 6:00 and 8:00 a.m., offers the best light for photographing the main wall and is also the only time when the number of visitors is low enough to observe the space without crowds.
If you visit Machu Picchu with an official guide, it is recommended to ask for an explanation of both the temple’s architecture and the debate surrounding Bingham’s hypothesis. It is one of the points on the route where the contrast between what can be archaeologically verified and what belongs to interpretation becomes especially clear, and that tension makes the visit more interesting.
