Although the North American Hiram Bingham has taken world glory for having “discovered” the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, all the historical evidence points to the fact that this famous archaeological site was never lost.
Bingham gained fame after making three expeditions (1911, 1912 and 1915) to Machu Picchu, which he called ” the lost city of the Incas “, but in the midst of his adventures he ignored the historical data he found and even stopped mentioning important connoisseurs. from the area, including a compatriot of his.
This character was Albert Giesecke, an American academic who, at the age of 29, was rector of the Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cuzco and who was the one who gave him the references and even the name of Melchor Arteaga, the peasant who would later guide Bingham, on July 24, 1911, to the famous ruins.
But before Bingham, who many say was inspired by the movie figure of Indiana Jones, other people visited the place, although always with the anxiety of looking for treasures or while carrying out mining explorations or looking for river routes to the Amazon.
The most famous of all was the Cuzco landowner Agustín Lizárraga, who came to the ruins and even inscribed on the wall of the Three Windows “A. Lizárraga, July 14, 1902”, that is, nine years before Bingham.
Lizárraga carried out the first cleaning tasks in the ruins accompanied by Justo A. Ochoa, Gabino Sánchez and Enrique Palma, but he drowned in the Vilcanota River in February 1912, without being able to claim his discovery.
But even before him, there were already 19th century maps indicating the site of Machu Picchu and, if one goes back further in time, the first indications are from 1565, when in the writings of the Spanish Diego Rodríguez de Figueroa it appeared with the name of “Pijchu”.
The German adventurer Augusto Berns, the authentic Indiana Jones of Machu Picchu
- Many of these data were offered in 2003 by the Peruvian historian Mariana Mold de Pease, who published the book “Machu Picchu and the Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Society.”
- Among the historical evidence, Mold published the maps that prove that the Inca citadel had been discovered in the 19th century, and apparently looted, by the German adventurer Augusto Berns. Those maps had been made public as a scoop by the North American cartographer Paolo Greer, who assured that Berns was the true discoverer of Machu Picchu, something that was rejected by Mold.
- In addition, the historian revealed that Bingham had among his papers the resolution that authorized Berns’ presence at the historic site, and also said that the English historian Clemens Markham, who became president of the Royal Geographical Society of London, also had maps. in which Machu Picchu appeared.
- The Peruvian historian Carlos Carcelén assures, for his part, that Berns settled in the Cuzco region and created a logging and mining company in the second half of the 19th century, from where he began to loot the relics of Machu Picchu with the knowledge of the government at that time.
- Mold also advanced the existence of other maps dated 1870 and 1874, respectively, and which he considers “irrefutable proof that Machu Picchu was fully integrated into republican Peru.”
- The 1870 map was drawn by the American Harry Singer to promote mining investment in the area, and the 1874 map was made by the German engineer Herman Gohring on behalf of the Peruvian government and clearly indicates Machu Picchu and the neighboring mountain Huaina Picchu.
- Now that a century has passed, and with full worldwide recognition, there is a consensus that Bingham was not the discoverer, but he was the first person who knew how to realize the historical and cultural importance of the citadel that would be considered one of the Seven New Wonders of the World.
