Hiram Bingham reaches Machu Picchu

American explorer Hiram Bingham was led to Machu Picchu by local farmers and made it widely known. The Inca site was built in the mid-1400s.

Context

Bingham, a Yale lecturer, was searching for the last Inca refuges when a local farmer named Melchor Arteaga guided him up the mountain on July 24, 1911. A few families were already farming the terraces, so the site was known locally and was not truly lost. Some earlier visitors may also have reached it.

Bingham returned with Yale-backed expeditions in 1912 and 1914-15, and his photographs and writing, especially in National Geographic in 1913, brought the site worldwide attention. He first believed it was Vilcabamba, the last Inca capital, but later research placed Vilcabamba elsewhere.

Machu Picchu is generally dated to the mid-1400s and is linked to the Inca ruler Pachacuti, probably as a royal estate. It was abandoned around the time of the Spanish conquest, and the Spanish never described it.

Many artifacts taken to Yale became the subject of a long dispute with Peru, and agreements in the early 2010s led to their return to Cusco.

Today the site is a UNESCO World Heritage site, listed in 1983, and Peru limits daily visitor numbers to reduce wear on the terraces and stonework. Dates and uses of its buildings are inferred from architecture and a few surviving records, so details are still studied.