Machu Picchu ruin 'found earlier'

by Rachel Nixon | June 6, 2008 at 01:30 pm

1286 views | 34 Recommendations | 14 comments

The lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, was apparently discovered more than 40 years earlier than previously thought, according to historians.

The site is believed to have been ransacked by a German adventurer in the 1860s.

Machu Picchu, now Peru's biggest tourist attraction, was famously believed to have been discovered in 1911 by US explorer Hiram Bingham.

The ruins are the crown jewel of Peru's archaeological sites in Peru and draw thousands of tourists every day.

Machu Pichu carries symbolic value for Peru's indigenous people.

It was built by one of the last Inca emperors, Pachacutec, in around 1450 and kept secret from the Spanish conquerors who invaded about 100 years later.

Now the story about its discovery by the western world has been shaken up by a team of historians who say a German businessman looted its treasures more than 40 years before.

They say the adventurer, Augusto Berns, who traded in Peru's wood and gold, raided the citadel's tombs in 1867 apparently with the blessing of the Peruvian government.

He had set up a sawmill at the foot of the forested mountain on which Machu Picchu stands and systematically robbed precious artefacts which he sold to European galleries and museums.

Only when one of the historians found a map in Peru's national museum were his activities traced.

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Jarrett Martineau

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:34 on June 6th, 2008

Great post. It's sadly all too common that the world's cultural heritage sites have been ransacked by colonial adventurers and archaeologists. Even still, I've longed to visit the stunning remains of Machu Picchu for many, many years. Hopefully one day soon!

René

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:25 on June 6th, 2008

Have any of those artifacts surfaced or can they be traced? esp. European galleries, museums? or did the Nazis come along and scoop them all up? Maybe they are in the caves where the Amber Room might be.

Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:18 on June 6th, 2008

Rachel Nixon, I like this story. It's good stuff.

agdobson

at 15:39 on June 6th, 2008

I was lucky enough to visit last year, and there is loads of the area/mountain yet to be excavated, so there should be lots of new stuff still to find.

Barry Artiste

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 21:36 on June 6th, 2008

Rachel Nixon, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Archaeologists at the time in the 19th century were most likely Indiana Joneses of their time, treasure seekers looking for glory, and not much else.

azzayindia

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 01:47 on June 7th, 2008

Rachel Nixon, I like this story. It's good stuff.

lakwatsera

at 06:13 on June 7th, 2008

I just visited in February and was amazed at how much of the structures were preserved. I hope they could track down some of the treasures.

matte

at 04:18 on June 8th, 2008

"I just visited in February and was amazed at how much of the structures were preserved."

Of course the ruins are comparatively young, only 600 years - there are still many buildings in Europe that old, still standing, still in use in many cases.

But the work in construction, in such a hard to get to place - impressive indeed!

cruzyadaddy

at 11:23 on June 7th, 2008

Meditation

cruzyadaddy has contributed a photo to this story.

Lucas Flavio

at 16:12 on June 7th, 2008

They are committed.
The best is not having the photos, is having lived the moment. Machu Picchu is beautiful, not only belongs to me.
Good winds
Lucas

Lucas Flavio has contributed a photo to this story.

Top Lertpanyavit

at 07:30 on June 8th, 2008

To get the photo, my wife got up early and onto the second bus leaving Aguas Calientes for Machu Picchu. This was actually our second trip up — we visited the afternoon before as well to get an initial impression and scout a good location. Though we were early, the weather didn’t cooperate and kept the ruins shrouded for another two hours. At about eight AM, it started to clear and it was glorious. The rest of my Peru photos are at: http://www.flickr.com/topl

Top Lertpanyavit has contributed a photo to this story.

Maireid Sullivan

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 19:05 on June 8th, 2008

Hello Rachel, I forwarded this story to my friend Barbara Drake, a New Yorker who now lives in Lima with her Peruvian husband, photographer Jorge Vera. She wrote the following 'informative' response, with permission to post here.

"The timing of the article is a bit suspicious (sorry to sound
paranoid!). It's just that right now, Peru is suing Yale University to
recover thousands of artifacts taken by Hiram Bingham from Machu
Picchu. Initially Yale said it had several thousand, but an
investigation several months ago revealed that the university was
hoarding 40,000 artifacts. Yale has always maintained that the stuff HB
took from MP was not very valuable or artistic. (Like it's not worth
giving back to Peru.)
"It would be convenient for Yale to have people think that the "real"
treasures at Machu Picchu were taken by a prior explorer. That would
make the university look less culpable with a new bad guy to blame.
"Maybe a German guy did take the good stuff. But without names, photos, descriptions of items, there's nothing to back it up.
"Poor Peru. Someone is always taking her treasures."