Read the text and fill in the gaps with the words from the list!Farmland - Empire - Religious - Peru - Discovery - Architecture - Explorers - Skilled - Ruins - Terraces

This is the lost city of the Incas: Machu Picchu. Its ancient (1.) ... are located nearly 2,450 meters, or 8,000 feet, above sea level and sit between two peaks of the Andes Mountains in the South American country of (2.)... This ancient city was built around 1450 by the Incas - a civilization with a vast (3.)... of more than 16 million people and 2 million square kilometres or almost 800,000 square miles, of territory. A number of (4.) ... have discovered and rediscovered the ruins of Machu Picchu at different times during the last several centuries. But much of the world didn't learn about Machu Picchu until 1948, when the explorer Hiram Bingham III wrote a book about his (5.)... of the lost city. In his book, Bingham called Machu Picchu the "lost city of the Incas" because it had been lost to the outside world. Machu Picchu was built on a network of (6.) ... These were connected to a central plaza by many different stairways. Most of the 140 buildings are small, one-room stone houses, while the larger buildings in Machu Picchu are probably former (7.)... structures, like temples. The Incas grew their food on the sides of the steep mountains. To create the (8.)... terraces were cut into the mountains. To make sure crops like potatoes, corn, and beans had enough water, a complex irrigation system was developed by the Incas. As you can see from the ruins of Machu Picchu, the Incas were (9.)... builders. They built extraordinary and sometimes very large structures without using the wheel or animals like horses or oxen. Instead, the Inca craftsmen used very simple tools to cut the huge stones for their temples, palaces, fortresses, and even irrigation canals and aqueducts. Inca (10.)... is unique, and each wall is a true masterpiece.​