Level 1 - Absolute Beginner
Machu Picchu is a famous old city in Peru. It was built long ago by the Inca people.
Scientists used a special laser tool to look under the trees near Machu Picchu.
They found roads that no one knew about before. The roads are more than 2.5 kilometers long.
The roads were hidden under thick forest for a very long time.
- famous
- known by many people
- old
- existing for a long time, not new
- laser
- a strong, narrow beam of light used in special tools
- tool
- an object used to help do work
- forest
- a large area covered with many trees
- road
- a path that people or vehicles travel on
- hidden
- not able to be seen, kept out of sight
- discover
- to find something for the first time
Level 2 - Elementary
Machu Picchu, the famous Inca city in Peru, is still hiding secrets after hundreds of years.
A team of scientists from Poland and Peru used a technology called LiDAR, which uses laser light, to see through the thick forest near the site.
They discovered more than 2.5 kilometers of roads that had never been recorded before, including one main road that stretches at least 1.2 kilometers.
Part of the road has a zigzag shape, a style that is typical of how the Inca people built their paths.
- technology
- tools, machines, and methods created using scientific knowledge
- LiDAR
- a technology that uses laser light to measure distances and map the ground, even under trees
- site
- the place where something, like an ancient city, is located
- recorded
- written down or documented so information is not lost
- stretches
- extends over a distance
- zigzag
- a line that turns sharply from one direction to another, back and forth
- typical
- normal or expected for a particular type of thing
- engineering
- the use of science and math to design and build things, like roads or buildings
Level 3 - Intermediate
Researchers from the University of Warsaw's Center for Andean Studies, working with Peru's Decentralized Directorate of Culture of Cusco, have used LiDAR remote sensing to identify more than 2.5 kilometers of previously undocumented roads near Machu Picchu.
The technology works by firing laser pulses at the ground and measuring the reflected signals, allowing researchers to build detailed models of terrain that would otherwise be completely obscured by the dense vegetation of the Andean cloud forest.
Among the findings is a main road at least 1.2 kilometers long, including a distinctive zigzag section, along with what researchers believe may be previously unknown agricultural terraces and platforms near the Mandor Wall, east of the main citadel.
The fieldwork, carried out in late July and early August 2026, adds to a growing body of evidence that the urban and agricultural footprint of the Inca site extended well beyond the areas most visible to modern visitors.
- remote sensing
- gathering information about an area from a distance, often using instruments like satellites or lasers
- undocumented
- not officially recorded or written down anywhere
- pulse (laser)
- a brief burst of laser light sent out by a scanning instrument
- obscured
- hidden from view, made difficult to see
- terrain
- the physical features of an area of land
- terrace
- a flat, leveled area of ground, often built on a slope for farming
- citadel
- a fortress or fortified area, often at the center of a city
- footprint (figurative)
- the extent or area that something covers or affects
Level 4 - Advanced
Deploying LiDAR remote sensing across the cloud forest that shrouds the terrain east of Machu Picchu's citadel, a joint team from the University of Warsaw's Center for Andean Studies and Cusco's Decentralized Directorate of Culture has peeled back centuries of vegetation to reveal more than 2.5 kilometers of roadway invisible to the naked eye and, until now, entirely absent from the archaeological record.
The technique, which fires rapid laser pulses toward the ground and reconstructs terrain from their reflected signals, cuts through a canopy that has defeated conventional survey methods for generations, exposing not just a 1.2 kilometer main road with a telltale Inca zigzag alignment but also what researchers suspect are agricultural terraces and platforms near the Mandor Wall.
The discovery complicates the tidy, postcard image of Machu Picchu as a self contained citadel, suggesting instead a far more extensive built environment, one whose roads, terraces, and support infrastructure radiated outward into terrain that tourism and prior scholarship alike had largely written off as untouched wilderness.
Carried out over a matter of weeks in July and August 2026, the survey underscores how remote sensing technologies are quietly rewriting the map of the Inca world, uncovering an infrastructure of empire that was engineered with a level of ambition modern visitors, confined to the citadel's well trodden paths, rarely get to appreciate.
- shroud (verb)
- to cover or conceal something completely
- canopy
- the uppermost layer of branches and leaves in a forest
- telltale
- revealing or indicating something, serving as a clear sign
- alignment
- the arrangement of things in a particular line or pattern
- self contained
- complete in itself, not depending on or connected to anything outside
- radiate (figurative)
- to spread outward from a central point
- infrastructure
- the underlying physical structures and systems that support a place or society
- empire
- a large political entity, often made up of many territories, ruled by a single authority
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