What Is Moray, Peru?

Moray is an archaeological site in Maras, Peru, dedicated to preserving Inca ruins. The Inca built the structures of Moray between 1200 and 1490, though the precise dates of construction are unknown.

Features

Moray structures are ancient terraces with unique, concentric circle designs. Each circular tier is set lower than the tier enclosing it, so the terrace deepens like a bowl. The deepest terrace floor is 490 feet below ground level.

Archivist and historian Paul Cooper notes the circular terraces’ “depth, design, and orientation with respect to wind and sun creates a temperature difference of as much as 15 °C (9 °F) between the top and the bottom.” This creates an unusual microclimate.

The Moray Terraces’ Purpose & Crop Circles In Peru

Archeologists believe the terraces were agricultural, although the site may have also been used as a pit mine or for religious ceremonies. This makes the Moray ruins a different kind of “crop circle” than the phrase usually conjures.

Historians largely agree that the Incas’ circular terrace design was meant to enhance irrigation. Structural evidence indicates the circles were once connected to a water management and irrigation system.

Ancient Incan hydraulic structures used gravity and pressurized wells to direct the flow of natural freshwater springs to the terraced crops. The concentric circular design enabled water to flow easily down each terrace tier, creating artificial, vertical “waterfalls” from one platform to the next.

Location of The Moray Ruins

The Moray site is in Maras, a bit north of the city of Cusco. It’s in the Cusco Region of The Sacred Valley, in Peru’s Urubamba province.

Visitors walk, bike, or ride horseback from Cusco to the Moray archeological site by following marked hiking trails. Trails are 25 miles to 31 miles long.

They can also take a taxi, bus, or collectivo, driving to the site from Cusco in less than an hour and a half.

Moray & Maras Salt Mines

Around 600 A.D., the Huari Empire (also called the Wari Empire or Wari Civilization), conquered almost all of the Andes mountains in Peru. For three to four centuries thereafter, they constructed and expanded settlements in the place now known as The Sacred Valley.

Much of their culture was lost as their civilization ended—with one exception: Salineras de Maras, or the Maras Salt Mines.

Salineras de Maras is a series of open-air salt mines which use evaporation ponds to separate salt from water. First built over a millennium ago, they’re still in use today.

Ancient hydraulic infrastructure draws up subterranean saltwater, carefully distributing it to each geometric evaporation pond in a continuous flow (without overfilling).

Salinera de Maras uses salty, mineral-rich water from a spring beneath Qaqawiñay mountain. Its deposits include pink salt crystals of the highest quality—a gourmet salt sought after by chefs worldwide.

Salineras de Maras is open to visitors. However, due to their fragility, only pre-approved farmers may approach and harvest from the evaporation ponds.

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