Machu Picchu
While looking for another Incan - Vilcabamba, Hiram Bingham, Yale graduate, US Senator, found Machu Picchu and was convinced it was Vilcabamba. There were absolutely no records of this city existing but he was amazed at what they found under the jungle cover. Explorations between 1911 and 1915 found that the city had not been invaded by the Spaniards, which only could have happened if the city was extinct before they came to Peru and the Quechua people honestly did not remember it, as they told the Spaniards just about everything. One theory is that it was 'a summer estate' for the Inca Pachacutec, the Inca who brought the empire to its peak, a real warrior and one of their most remembered. He was the 9th Inca, so construcion would have started in the 1440s and probably lasted for less than 100 years. Some theories on its demise- plague, a rebel city that was killed off, or that the water supply from the Machu Picchu mountain dried up. The last is the most likely.
Nov 2, 2007
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