The historic site, high in the Peruvian Andes, can be seen in unprecedented detail in a zoomable image shot in 15.9 gigapixels.

The picture was taken by Jeff Cremer, photo tour director of Rainforest Expeditions, a company that runs eco-tourism trips to the Peruvian Amazon.

Mr Cremer believes his picture is the highest resolution picture of Machu Picchu ever taken - and he says it took a phenomenal 11.5 hours to upload to the internet.

He said he hopes it will raise awareness of the dangers posed to the survival of the historic site, which is under threat from the millions of tourists who visit each year.

'Machu Picchu is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and is often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World,' he said on a website built to showcase the image.

'In 2008, the World Monuments Fund placed Machu Picchu on its Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world because of environmental degradation due to tourism.

'Beautiful, historical and threatened, I believe that this remarkable site deserved a remarkable photo.


'I think that this image can help preserve this amazing place and bring more awareness to the site, its history and its endangered state.'

To take the photo, Mr Cremer put his camera on to a Gigapan Epic Pro robotic mount, which spent an hour and 44 minutes taking 1,920 individual images.

He faced several challenges in capturing the image. 'Some of the software that I connect the camera to my computer froze and I had to restart the camera and the software then I had to find exactly where in the image the software froze then back up and reshoot the missed images,' he said.

'If I didn't capture all of the missing images the entire project would have failed.

'I also had security guards constantly asking to see my photo permits and some of the tourists blocked my view so I had to pause shooting and wait for them to move.'

Built in the 15th century, before the arrival of the Spanish invaders, Machu Picchu is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World.

It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, 50 miles (80km) north-west of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows.

Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472).

Although known to locals, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. (SOURCE)