Machu Picchu Found: Lost Inca City Revealed
Hiram Bingham III, a Yale lecturer, reached Machu Picchu on July 24, 1911, guided by a local farmer named Melchor Arteaga who charged him 50 cents for the trip. Bingham didn't discover the site: families were farming on the terraces when he arrived, and a previous visitor had scratched his name on one of the walls. What Bingham did was publicize the ruins to the international scientific community, returning with National Geographic funding to excavate and photograph the site extensively. He removed thousands of artifacts to Yale, triggering a century-long dispute with Peru that wasn't resolved until 2012. The "lost city" was never actually lost, just ignored by anyone with a printing press.
July 24, 1911
115 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 24
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