New Ruins Discovered Under Dense Forest Around Machu Picchu
JICA, the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, and Futaba Co., Ltd. discovered new architectural remains under the forest near Machu Picchu using non-destructive 3D drone surveying technology (UAV-LiDAR).
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: March 30, 2026 at 20:00
- 🔍 Collected: March 30, 2026 at 22:56 (2h 56m after Published)
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 22, 2026 at 22:51 (551h 55m after Collected)
JICA, together with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and Futaba Co., Ltd., a company based in Fukushima Prefecture, has successfully extracted several new structural remains that were previously difficult to identify from beneath the dense forest surrounding the Machu Picchu ruins, using Japanese high-precision 3D surveying technology (UAV-LiDAR). This achievement is a groundbreaking initiative that realizes the confirmation of ruins in unexplored areas without cutting down forests, marking a major step forward in JICA's cooperation toward advancing cultural heritage conservation and strengthening tourism safety. This survey is part of a JICA project that utilizes Japanese technology and expertise to address Peru's national challenge of balancing advanced cultural heritage conservation with tourism.
In this survey, we succeeded for the first time in grasping the complete picture of "Andenes Orientales," a large-scale terraced field complex spreading to the northeast of the Machu Picchu ruins, which was difficult to visually recognize due to being covered by trees. Furthermore, in an unexplored area on the north side of the ruins near the Temple of the Moon, several distinct candidate remains were newly confirmed, including an L-shaped wall structure (approx. 2.7 m in height), symmetrical three-tiered terraced fields, and cuboid stones that show potential signs of processing. These discoveries were made possible by removing the forest data from the high-density point cloud data acquired via UAV-LiDAR, non-destructively extracting the terrain's surface shape.
*Terraced fields of Andenes Orientales: The ruin site Andenes Orientales spreads across the bottom from the north to the east of the Machu Picchu ruins. By generating a point cloud of the terraced fields that could not be confirmed in photographs due to tree cover, and by removing unnecessary data such as trees, the overall scale of the terraced fields and their connecting positions with adjacent terraces were confirmed.*
In this survey, we succeeded for the first time in grasping the complete picture of "Andenes Orientales," a large-scale terraced field complex spreading to the northeast of the Machu Picchu ruins, which was difficult to visually recognize due to being covered by trees. Furthermore, in an unexplored area on the north side of the ruins near the Temple of the Moon, several distinct candidate remains were newly confirmed, including an L-shaped wall structure (approx. 2.7 m in height), symmetrical three-tiered terraced fields, and cuboid stones that show potential signs of processing. These discoveries were made possible by removing the forest data from the high-density point cloud data acquired via UAV-LiDAR, non-destructively extracting the terrain's surface shape.
*Terraced fields of Andenes Orientales: The ruin site Andenes Orientales spreads across the bottom from the north to the east of the Machu Picchu ruins. By generating a point cloud of the terraced fields that could not be confirmed in photographs due to tree cover, and by removing unnecessary data such as trees, the overall scale of the terraced fields and their connecting positions with adjacent terraces were confirmed.*