Machu Picchu: Hiram Bingham Discovered the Lost City of the Incas

Posted on July 24, 2015 Updated on July 25, 2015

On July 24th 1911, Hiram Bingham, an academic, explorer and politician from the United States located an ancient Inca settlement in Peru named Machu Picchu.

In 1911, Bingham organized the 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition to search for the lost city of Vitcos, the last capital of the Incas. The team travelled from Cuzco into the Urubamba Valley and camped at Mandor Pampa. There a local farmer and innkeeper, Melchor Arteaga informed Bingham some excellent ruins on the top of mountain Machu Picchu, which meant “Old Peak” in the native Quechua language.

Next day, on 24 th July 1911 amidst bad weather conditions Bingham climbed to the top of the mountain to reach intricate network of stone structures covered densely with vegetation. This site was nothing but the famed ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu, often called “The Lost City of the Incas,” which has become a legendary site today.

Following this discovery Bingham returned to Machu Picchu in 1912 for further excavations which were sponsored by both Yale University and the National Geographic Society. Later in 1948 he published a book based on his research findings named “Lost City of the Incas”. The book and Bingham is credited with bringing this lost location of South America back to global attention.

However, Peru has long sought the return of the estimated 40,000 artifacts, including mummies, ceramics and bones that Bingham had excavated and exported from the Machu Picchu site. On 14th September, 2007, an agreement was made between Yale University and the Peruvian government for the return of the objects.

The fact that Bingham was the first to discover Machu Picchu also remains debated.  Others who have claimed to come across Machu Picchu earlier include British missionary Thomas Payne, German engineer named J. M. von Hassel and more recently  a German named Augusto Berns.

Machu Picchu today stands as one of the greatest man-made wonders stretching across five miles, with over 3,000 stone steps linking its many different levels. The site has been declared a “historical sanctuary” by the Peruvian government and it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983.

Source: HistoryToday; Rediscover Machu Picchu; Wired.com; History.com