The Inti Raymi or Festival of the Sun was a religious ceremony of the Inca Empire in honor of the sun god Inti. It also marked the Winter solstice and a new year in the Andes of the Southern Hemisphere. One ceremony performed by the Inca priests was the tying of the sun. In Machu Picchu there is still a large column of stone called an Intihuatana, meaning "hitching post of the sun" or literally for tying the sun. The ceremony to tie the sun to the stone was to prevent the sun from escaping. The Spanish conquest, never finding Machu Picchu, destroyed all the other intihuatana, extinguishing the sun tying practice. The Catholic Church managed to suppress all Inti festivals and ceremonies by 1572. Since 1944, a theatrical representation of the Inti Raymi has been taking place at Sacsayhuamán (two km. from Cusco) on June 24 of each year, attracting thousands of local visitors and tourists.

The winter solstice sunrise was an important event for the Inca. It was determined approximately by noting a mountain peak marker as the sun rises. On solstices, the sun appears to us on earth to rise and set at the same spot several days before the solstice and several days after.

Archaeoastronomers are not certain how the Inca determined the precise day of the solstice but the phenomenon, at the Temple of the Sun probably contributed to the calculation.

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