Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Machu Picchu site was initially overgrown with thick vegetation, forcing Bing-
ham's team to be content with roughly mapping the site. He returned in 1912 and 1915 to
carry out the difficult task of clearing the thick forest. It was at this point that he also
mapped some of the ruins on the so-called Inca Trail. (Read Bingham's own account in
Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru,
first published in 1922.) Peruvian ar-
chaeologist Luis E Valcárcel undertook further studies in 1934, as did a Peruvian-Americ-
an expedition under Paul Fejos in 1940-41.
Bingham's search was originally for the lost city of Vilcabamba, the last stronghold of
the Incas, and he thought he had found it at Machu Picchu. (In fact, he died believing he
had.) But we now know that the remote ruins at Espíritu Pampa, much deeper in the
jungle, are actually the remains of Vilcabamba. Despite scores of more recent studies,
knowledge of Machu Picchu remains sketchy. Even today archaeologists are forced to rely
heavily on speculation as to its function. Some believe that it was founded in the waning
years of the Inca empire, while others think it was a royal retreat or country palace aban-
doned at the time of the Spanish invasion. The site's director believes that it was a city
and a political, religious and administrative center. Its location, and the fact that at least
eight access routes have been discovered, suggests that it was a trade nexus between the
Amazon and the highlands.
It seems clear from the exceptionally high quality of the stonework and the abundance
of ornamental work that Machu Picchu was vitally important as a ceremonial center. To
some extent, it still is: Alejandro Toledo, the country's first full-blooded indigenous pres-
ident, staged his inauguration here in 2001.
