Moray Terraces

Moray is a set of enormous circular depressions on the plateau above the Sacred Valley, each terraced in concentric rings down to a flat floor, the largest around thirty metres deep. Measurements taken across the rings show a temperature difference of up to about fifteen degrees between the top and the bottom terrace, produced by depth, orientation and the stone retaining walls holding heat, and that has led to the widely repeated interpretation that Moray was an agricultural station where the Inca trialled crops at different simulated altitudes. It is a plausible reading rather than a demonstrated one - the archaeology does not prove a laboratory, and the terraces may equally have had ceremonial functions - and honest guides say so. The drainage engineering is remarkable in its own right: the floors do not flood despite sitting at the bottom of a bowl. Descending into the terraces is no longer permitted.

What you actually see

• The circular terraces - concentric rings sunk up to thirty metres into the plateau.
• The temperature gradient - up to about fifteen degrees between top and bottom.
• The drainage - floors that do not flood at the base of a closed bowl.
• The interpretation - the crop-laboratory reading is plausible but unproven.

When to go

April to October for dry weather. Early or late to avoid tour buses. One to two hours, normally combined with the Maras salt ponds.

Honest expectations

Visitors can no longer walk down into the terraces - viewing is from the rim. At 3,500 metres, exposed with no shade. Coach traffic peaks in the middle of the day. The famous explanation is a hypothesis, presented by many guides as fact.

Nearby

The Maras salt ponds are close; Urubamba and the Sacred Valley are below.