Beer ad shoot wrecks Inca treasure

An enormous granite sundial known by the Incas as the "Hitching Post for the Sun" was converted into a makeshift beer bar at the remote Inca citadel, Machu Picchu, by a New York advertising company.

An enormous granite sundial known by the Incas as the "Hitching Post for the Sun" was converted into a makeshift beer bar at the remote Inca citadel, Machu Picchu, by a New York advertising company.

That alone was enough to rile official guardians of the heritage site high in the Andes. But when a 1,000lb crane came crashing down on it duringthe commercial shoot by theJ Walter Thompson group over the weekend, Peruvians were furious.

An edge of the 500-year-old Intihuatana stone, measuring 8cm by 5cm by 3cm, was demolished. The apologetic film crew handed over the fragments to stunned curators. The contoured granite block, once used by Inca astronomers to predict solstices, is essential to Inca mythology and forms the centrepiece of the protected archaeological ruins at Machu Picchu, which attract thousands of tourists each year to the jungle-covered plateau.

"Machu Picchu is the heart of our heritage and the Intihuatana is the heart of Machu Picchu. They've struck at our most sacred inheritance,'' said Federico Kaufmann Doig, a leading Peruvian archaeologist.

Gustavo Manrique, the director of National Culture Institute in Cuzco, said he felt "moral anguish" after the film crew allegedly sneaked their heavy equipment into the sanctuary at dawn, in violation of their permit. Staff at the production company now face criminal charges and up to four years in prison. The head of Cervesur, the local brewer that hired the film crew, offered to help repair the damage.

If ancient Inca practices were to be invoked in the case, the interlopers might find priests drilling holes in their skulls to purge them of evil.