Page 4 - Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu, also spelled Machupijchu, site of ancient Inca ruins located about 50 miles (80
km) northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains. It is
perched above the Urubamba River valley in a narrow saddle between two sharp peaks—Ma-
chu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“New Peak”)—at an elevation of 7,710 feet (2,350
metres). One of the few major pre-Columbian ruins found nearly intact, Machu Picchu was des-
ignated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.

Although the site escaped detection by the Spaniards, it may have been visited by the German
adventurer Augusto Berns in 1867. However, Machu Picchu’s existence was not widely known in
the West until it was “discovered” in 1911 by the Yale
University professor Hiram Bingham, who was led to
the site by Melchor Arteaga, a local Quechua-speaking
resident. Bingham had been seeking Vilcabamba (Vil-
capampa), the “lost city of the Incas,” from which the
last Inca rulers led a rebellion against Spanish rule until
1572. He cited evidence from his 1912 excavations at Ma-
chu Picchu, which were sponsored by Yale University and
the National Geographic Society, in his labeling of the
site as Vilcabamba; however, that interpretation is no
longer widely accepted. (Nevertheless, many sources
still follow Bingham’s precedent and erroneously label
Machu Picchu as the “lost city of the Incas.”) Evidence
later associated Vilcabamba with another ruin, Espíri-
tu Pampa, which was also discovered by Bingham. In
1964 Espíritu Pampa was extensively excavated under
the direction of the American explorer Gene Savoy. The
site was much deteriorated and overgrown with forest,
but Savoy uncovered remains there of some 300 Inca
houses and 50 or more other buildings, as well as exten-
sive terraces, proving that Espíritu Pampa was a much
larger settlement.

Machu Picchu was further excavated in 1915 by Bingham

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