ABSTRACT
486The year was 1911. American explorer Hiram Bingham was high in the Andes, struggling along precipitous, densely forested paths, slipping ankle-deep in mud at every corner. Bingham was searching for Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the Inka ruler Manca Inka when he fled from the Spaniards in 1537. With a local farmer as a guide, he and his men climbed—on all fours in places—far above the tumbling Urubamba River. Suddenly, he emerged into the open, high atop a mountain ridge. There he found a granite stairway, which led to a plaza. From the plaza, Bingham wandered through “a maze of beautiful granite houses … covered with trees and moss and the growth of centuries” (Bingham 1964, 212). He walked for hours among “walls of white granite … carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together.” Stone terraces climbed like giant staircases up the hillside. A twisting path led to ruined houses built with fine Inka stonework. The plaza that Bingham had reached via the granite stairway contained two temples, one with a large altar stone. “The sight held me spellbound,” declared Bingham. On this mountain ridge, the Inkas had built Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu, Peru Inka settlement high in the Andes occupied before, during, and after the Spanish conquest.
, a settlement in such a remote, inaccessible setting that Bingham proclaimed it the “lost city of the Inkas.” For three years, Bingham worked at Machu Picchu, clearing, excavating, and mapping houses and temples.