American university teacher Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956) became known as the discoverer of the world-famous Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru. When he ‘discovered’ the city on July 24, 1911, he was given a tour by a number of Peruvians who had lived in the area around the Inca city for some time. Machu Picchu was nothing new to these locals and they had no problem showing the American traveler exactly where to find the (overgrown) buildings of the old city.
‘No discoverer’
The 2012 book Turn Right At Machu Picchu. Rediscovering the Lost City also addresses the question. According to author Mark Adams – who followed in Bingham’s footsteps by also traveling on foot to the Inca city – it’s nonsense to call Bingham the ‘discoverer of Machu Picchu’:
“It is certain that he did not discover Machu Picchu. Perhaps he was the ‘scientific discoverer’, as a sign at the entrance to the ruined city states, but I don’t think that term applies. (…) What you could say about Bingham was that he had done something much less romantic, but much more important than discovering Machu Picchu. He had looked at the ruins and immediately recognized their importance (but not significance), and had given them so much publicity that they could no longer be blown up using dynamite to search for buried treasure, as Vitcos had done. Would Machu Picchu still exist if Bingham had never seen it? That’s for sure. But would it still look the same as it does now? Almost certainly not.”
National Geographic
The conclusion that Bingham should not be called the discoverer of Machu Picchu seems justified. This is not to say, however, that the American’s journey was not important. Hiram Bingham III put Machu Pichu on the map. Because of him the city became world famous and many got (better) acquainted with the world of the Incas.
At that time, the magazine was headed by Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor (1875-1966) who had the task of thoroughly changing the magazine. From a somewhat dry scientific magazine to an attractive magazine for a wide audience. Grosvenor chose to reserve much more space in the magazine for photos and he also wanted to make more room for hero stories. In the last years of the nineteenth century, the circulation increased enormously: from about a thousand to more than eighty thousand.
Hiram Bingham had asked Grosvenor in 1906 and 1908 for money for his expedition to Peru. In vain. Later, when the boss of National Geographic Magazine read the first stories about Machu Pichu, he realized that Bingham’s story was ideal for his magazine. Grosvenor soon managed to extract a story and published it in a big way, with of course many photos. In 1913, for the first time in the magazine’s history, an entire issue was devoted to one subject: Machu Picchu.
Stolen Inca Treasures
“We all very much hope that you can excavate and bring a shipload of antiquities for your museum in Yale.”
According to Adams, such a call isn’t that strange:
“Such acclaim may be unimaginable now, but at the time they were completely normal. Peruvian artifacts and art treasures had already been removed from the country without any restrictions since Francisco Pizarro demanded ransom for Atahualpa.”
However, it turned out not to be that easy to ‘pluck’ Machu Picchu. After the Inca city became world news, many Peruvian intellectuals went to great lengths to preserve the indigenous treasures for their country. So digging up treasure was one thing, getting them out of the country was another.
Back to Peru?
Bingham eventually left the arduous excavations to one of his associates. However, no great treasures were found. Among the finest finds were some bronze objects, silver clothes pins and a copper bracelet. 93 chests were completed. The contents mainly consisted of broken pottery and human remains and that was quite disappointing.
The battle between Yale and the Peruvian government is usually about these boxes with contents. Initially, Peru had banned the transport of the coffins to America in 1912, but eventually permission was granted, but under one important condition: Peru retained the right to reclaim the objects. The university has been discussing the return of the objects for years. In 2008 an agreement was reached but eventually there was another hitch. No agreement could be reached on the amount of items to be returned by the university.
What is often forgotten is that Bingham didn’t just transport objects from Machu Picchu to America. During his travels, he bought several hundred ancient Inca objects and smuggled them out of Peru. Many of those objects are more impressive than the pieces from Machu Picchu, Adams writes.
Following in the footsteps of…
The author describes himself at the beginning of his book as a somewhat gray mouse who has actually always sat behind his desk. That gray mouse, however, did set out to make an arduous hike to Machu Picchu, together with a somewhat antisocial Australian who knows everything about the Incas and a group of guides who only speak Quechua and chew coca leaves. After a bumbling start, Adams increasingly makes life in the Peruvian jungle his own.
Along the way, he not only describes the search for Machu Picchu. He also considers the astrological world of the Incas, the arrival of the Spanish conquerors in the sixteenth century, the fall of the Inca Empire, the backgrounds of Hiram Bingham and the question of art treasures. An extremely readable book in which all kinds of interesting facts about the Incas are reviewed in a playful way.
Book: Turn Right At Machu Picchu. Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
