he Hiram Bingham Machu Picchu Discovery Debate
History, Facts & Fables – Who Discovered the Lost City of the Incas?
Sep 5, 2009 Tony Dunnell
Hiram Bingham Machu Picchu Discoverer 1911 -photo by Gerald Farinas
The pre-Columbian Inca site of Machu Picchu, the legendary Lost City of the Incas, is one of the most famous historical sites in the world. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited by thousands each day, Machu Picchu was first revealed to the world when Hiram Bingham discovered the site in 1911.
However, controversy has surrounded Bingham’s discovery ever since. Claims have been made that others had reached Machu Picchu before Hiram Bingham, and that the Lost City had already been found.
The Hiram Bingham Machu Picchu Discovery
Hiram Bingham was an American professor and explorer, often said to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's fictional Indiana Jones. While not a trained archeologist, his interest in the ruins of South America was piqued on a trip to the continent in 1908.
He returned to Peru in 1911 with the Yale Peruvian Expedition. Arriving in Lima, Bingham studied the centuries old chronicles of Fernando de Montesinos and Antonio de la Calancha. The texts both inspired and informed Bingham, and he headed to Cusco in search of the lost cities of the Incas.
From Cusco to Machu Picchu
Hiram Bingham led his team from Cusco along the Urubamba Valley, travelling on foot through the jungle. Setting up camp by the river, Bingham and his team were approached by a local Quechau indian farmer by the name of Melchor Arteaga. Arteaga told of an old Inca complex up on a ridge near the camp.
The following day, 24th July 1911, accompanied by Arteaga and Sergeant Carrasco, Bingham’s interpreter and guide, Hiram Bingham began the trek to the ruins. What he found would make him the toast of nations: Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas.
Who Discovered Machu Picchu?
Hiram Bingham became a worldwide celebrity after his discovery was announced to the world. However, it did not take long before others claimed to have found Machu Picchu before him.
In 1916 a German mining engineer called Carl Haenel wrote a letter to the Times newspaper. In it, Haenel claimed that he had accompanied fellow German J.M. von Hassel to Machu Picchu in 1910 – one year before Hiram Bingham. No proof of the expedition was given, and the claim lies largely unfounded.
A stronger claim was to emerge, centered on the English Baptist missionary Thomas Payne. Payne lived in Peru from 1903 to 1952, and while no direct statement exists from Payne himself, others have claimed on his behalf that he visited Machu Picchu in 1906.
The strongest proponent of this claim was William W. Evans. Evans claimed to have met Payne in Peru in 1920, and that Payne related the story of his own trek to the Lost City five years before Hiram Bingham. Evans also stated that it was Payne, who ran a Mission in Cusco at the time, who told Bingham where to find Machu Picchu.
American researcher and author Daniel Buck, in his article “Fights of Machu Picchu”, while not dismissing the Payne claims, states that “No contemporaneous evidence has ever surfaced to substantiate the Payne claim, nor has any reference to Payne, who died in 1967, appeared among the Bingham papers” (South American Explore, no. 32, January 1993).
Machu Picchu Facts and Fables – Debate Continues Today
In 2008 another claim emerged, this time supported by some thorough research. American historian Paolo Greer found evidence that a German by the name of Augusto R. Berns had set up a sawmill business near the foot of Machu Picchu. The business, he claims, was a front for the looting of Inca gold and relics from the Lost City, with Berns exploiting the wealth of the ruins from as early as 1867, over forty years before Bingham arrived.
More controversially, Greer states that the Peruvian government was aware of the situation and taking a 10% cut. The new findings were reported in The Independent online on 2nd June 2008, archaeology correspondent David Keys stating that “His (Berns’) company, the aptly-named Companhia Anonima Explotadora de las Huacas del Inca (the Inca Sites Exploitation Company) had the backing of some of the most important people in Peru, including the country's president at the time, Andres Avelino Caceres”.
Greer has since started an international search for the looted and now lost treasures, hoping that a list of Berns’ former business contacts will lead the way.
Hiram Bingham – Machu Picchu’s Scientific Discoverer
Today, Peruvian authorities label Hiram Bingham as the “scientific discoverer” of Machu Picchu. This is a fair conclusion. Hiram Bingham deserved the credit he received; he set out to find the Lost City of the Incas and he accomplished his goal. More so, he did it in the name of discovery; he did not loot the site nor did he fail to recognize the importance of what he had found.
Machu Picchu had never truly been lost, it had only been forgotten. Locals knew of its existence when Bingham arrived. What Hiram Bingham accomplished was the rediscovery of Machu Picchu for the outside world and for the world of scientific and historical study.
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