Cold Open

It’s 1902, at the base of Huayna Picchu, a mountain in South Peru.

Smoke fills Agustín Lizárraga’s eyes, his vision blurring as tears streak down his cheeks. Agustín is a local farmer who has just set fire to the foothills of the Andes, hoping to clear a path to fertile ground.

As the last embers die out, Agustín carefully treads over the sooty ground, scorched shrubbery crunching under his heavy footsteps.

He climbs higher and higher up the peak, surveying the uncharted terrain stretching before him, and then catching sight of something that stops him in his tracks. Up ahead, barely visible behind thick foliage, is a flight of roughly hewn stone steps disappearing around the side of the mountain.

Wielding a small knife, Agustín crouches low to slash through the tangled mesh of undergrowth, clearing a path toward the mysterious staircase.

He rushes forward and eagerly clambers up the steps. And by the time he reaches the last landing, Agustín is exhausted. He can barely catch his breath before it escapes him all over again. Awestruck, Agustín looks out at the unbelievable scene before him, gasping in wonder at the terraced fields cutting across the adjacent mountain face, each one bound by rows of tightly packed stones, evidence of some ancient society.

Agustín will be delighted by his discovery. He will return to the site several times, eventually realizing that the terraced fields are part of an abandoned, ancient citadel. As Agustín explores the well-preserved ruins, he will uncover a network of temples, homes, courtyards, plazas, and tombs.

It will later be discovered that this ancient city, which many historians believe to be named Machu Picchu, is an important remnant of the Incan Empire which dominated South America for centuries. In time, the fame of Machu Picchu will spread far and wide, and it will eventually become one of the seven wonders of the world. But after Agustín’s accidental discovery, the ruins of this ancient civilization will remain a secret to the rest of the world, until American explorer Hiram Bingham III finds the lost city again on July 24th, 1911.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is July 24th, 1911: The Rediscovery of Machu Picchu.

Act One

It’s a rainy morning of July 24th, 1911, deep in the remote Peruvian Andes, nearly a decade after Agustín Lizárraga stumbled upon Machu Picchu.

Hiram Bingham III crawls across a rickety bridge suspended just inches above a torrent of gushing water. Peering through the treacherous gaps in the slippery logs, Hiram watches the water froth as it pummels against the boulders lining the river bank. Shivering, Hiram averts his eyes and scrambles forward, until his palms finally grasp the firmness of solid ground. Standing up, he dusts off his khaki trousers, glances back at the treacherous bridge, then adjusts his wide-brimmed hat and then dives into the dense jungle that lays ahead of him.

Hiram is a 35-year-old professor of Latin American history at Yale University, here to search for a lost Incan city. Following Spain’s colonization of the Americas in the sixteenth century, the Incas are believed to have fled to a remote city, seeking sanctuary in a secret mountainous refuge that the Spaniards never found. But the Incan people didn’t leave any written records that indicated the location of this city, widely referred to by historians as Vilcabamba, and as centuries passed, this last bastion of the Incan empire seems irreparably lost.

But Hiram is determined to track it down. His interest in this ancient citadel dates back to his travels across South America a few years ago. As he passed through the city of Cuzco in the southeastern corner of Peru, a government official convinced him to visit a set of nearby ruins that some believed to be the vestiges of Vilcabamba. These relics were ultimately proven not to be the Incan capital, but they ignited in Hiram an unwavering commitment to find the fabled lost city.

The official mission of Hiram’s current expedition is to conduct an extensive geographical and geological survey along the seventy-third meridian of longitude, south from the Amazon to the Pacific. But Hiram’s personal objective is to find the ancient Incan citadel. And Hiram thinks he’s getting close.

Five days after starting their journey into the wilderness, the expedition came upon a local farmer, Melchor Arteaga. Melchor told the explorers enticing stories of ancient ruins at the top of a nearby precipice. He even promised to lead them there so they could study them in greater detail.

Now, Hiram follows behind as Melchor guides him and another expedition member to the mysterious ruins. After crossing the perilous bridge, Melchor leads them through the thick undergrowth to the base of a steep slope. Hiram groans with effort as he struggles to find handholds to hoist himself up the nearly perpendicular, slippery rock face.

But after more than an hour of climbing, he finally hauls himself over the edge onto a patch of level land, completely exhausted. As he regains his breath and looks around, his eyes widen in surprise. Just across from him is a grass-covered hut inhabited by native farmers who offer the weary explorers large cups brimming with cold water.

The men are thankful for the break but know they have to get back to business. But Melchor is eager to rest, and having visited the site before, he instructs a young native boy to guide Hiram and his colleague to the ruins. Hiram eagerly follows the boy away from the hut, trekking through the wilderness until the group is confronted by a flight of hundreds of stone-faced terraces.

Anticipation mounts as the boy leads them even further into the forest that lies beyond the terraces. Hiram is cautiously weaving through the dense thicket when he catches a glimpse of a granite wall adorned by overgrown creepers. He walks briskly toward the ruins, brushing aside the tangled vines that obscure the stone structures and instinctively reaching for his camera as the ancient civilization of Machu Picchu is revealed to him.

Though it is not the lost city of Vilcabamba that Hiram is looking for, the granite wall will be part of the ruins of an Incan settlement deep in the Peruvian forest. In later accounts of this story, Hiram will praise the houses, temples, and plazas he encountered. But in reality, Hiram will not fully appreciate significance of what he found. He will spend less than an afternoon in the ruins, taking pictures and making sketches in his notebook, before returning to his campsite. It is only after he discovers two other Incan settlements that Hiram will start to believe that the ruins at Machu Picchu might have been what he was looking for all along.

Act Two

It’s July 1912, at the ancient Incan settlement of Machu Picchu, one year after Hiram Bingham III first set his sights on it.

Hiram’s mind races with possibilities as he approaches a large boulder in the northeast region of the ruins. Underneath it is a wedge-shaped wall made up of small rocks. And crouching down on his knees, Hiram pulls the roughly-cut stones away, to reveal the entrance to a hidden underground cave — exactly what Hiram has been looking for. He peers through the opening, his lips parting in awe as his gaze falls upon the skeletal remains of the original inhabitants of Machu Picchu.

After stumbling upon the ancient settlement last summer, Hiram continued his expedition to find two more Incan settlements. First, an ancient city just thirty miles northwest of Machu Picchu. There, Hiram found the vestiges of a military stronghold, a sprawling royal palace, and an intricately carved boulder which confirmed his hypothesis that these were the ruins of Vitcos, a ceremonial center where Incan nobles took refuge. Hiram then forged ahead to a dense rainforest in a low-lying valley to find more ruins at Espiritu Pampa, or the Plain of Ghosts. Hiram only discovered a few small stone structures there, which he dismissed as being relatively unimpressive compared to the mystical ruins of Machu Picchu.

Convinced neither of these two new discoveries were the legendary Vilcabamba, Hiram began to construct a compelling narrative which proposed Machu Picchu as the last sanctuary of the Incan civilization. With this aim, he embarked on a second Peruvian expedition less than six months after his return to America. Sponsored by Yale University and National Geographic, this time the explorers are charged with excavating Machu Picchu in order to fully reveal the ancient city, and hopefully gain evidence that will prove that it is indeed Vilcabamba.

Now today, having found the burial chamber, Hiram and his team begin to investigate. As Hiram explores deeper in the chamber, others carefully clear the overgrown vegetation, bringing an impressive fortress into view. The ancient citadel is perched atop a narrow ridge and is surrounded by an imposing stone wall that once ran along the length of the city. Within it is a maze of houses, temples, palaces, staircases, and a great granite sundial positioned at the highest point of the ruins. The sundial is one of the settlement’s most intriguing structures. Most experts will later agree that the Incas used it primarily for astronomical purposes since the stone is precisely angled so as not to cast a shadow on the equinoxes. But the explorers also come across a unique temple, one that appears to be a religious building, used to worship the sun.

As more and more of the ruins are revealed, Hiram is astounded at the scale and intricacy of the structures built by an ancient civilization centuries ago. He marches around the site, camera in hand, capturing photographs of the remarkably constructed monuments. With each one he encounters, Hiram grows increasingly convinced that Machu Picchu is the lost city of the Incas after all, and he’s sure that a scientific analysis of the skeletons from the burial chamber will only confirm his theory.

What laboratory studies do reveal is that there were significantly more women in Machu Picchu than men. Since Vilcabamba was thought to be the last stronghold of the Inca civilization, this leads Hiram to hypothesize that the city was the last refuge of virgin Incan women, who dedicated themselves to the worship of the sun. In 1913, Hiram shares his findings with the public, penning an article titled “In the Wonderland of Peru,” which is published in National Geographic, alongside 250 of his photographs of the site.

This piece will make the fascinating structures and the story of Machu Picchu known to people across the world. But as the years roll on, scientists will begin to poke holes in Hiram’s theory that Machu Picchu is the Incas' lost capital. New studies will reveal that there were roughly equal male and female skeletons in the burial chambers. Most experts will reach the understanding that Machu Picchu was a royal estate, built for the Inca rulers to spend their summer in reflection, recreation, and pursuing business. Fresh examinations of the ceramics and architectural styles will support this analysis, leading explorers to resume the search for the Incas illustrious lost city once again.

Act Three

It’s mid-1964, deep inside a remote Peruvian jungle, more than five decades after Hiram Bingham III rediscovered Machu Picchu.

Thirty-seven-year-old Gene Savoy stares at the moss-covered ruins of an ancient Incan city, spellbound. He carefully picks his way through the dense undergrowth, finding himself surrounded on all sides by the remains of an opulent limestone and granite settlement, complete with fountains, gardens, courtyards, and terraced dwellings. Gene gently runs his fingers along an ornate pillar’s intricate carvings, believing that after a long and arduous journey, he has finally found the fabled lost city of the Incas.

Gene is an adventurer from Portland, Oregon, who has spent the last five years scouring the Andes for undiscovered remains of past civilizations. He has built a formidable reputation as an explorer by finding three pre-Inca cities and an ancient hundred-foot-wide highway. A year ago, he teamed up with experienced Peruvian explorer Antonio Cascelli to finally find Vilcabamba, the last capital of the Incas. The two men sifted through several old records before concluding that they should start their search at a secluded area northwest of Machu Picchu called Espiritu Pampa. After persuading a few natives to guide them, Gene and Antonio set out into the depths of the forest.

Three days into the hike, they record their first sightings of ancient ruins. Gene’s expedition uncovers vestiges of civilization that stretch across three plateaus, the highest poking through the clouds at nearly 13,000 feet.

But Gene isn’t the first to find these relics, at least not all of them. Hiram Bingham III had come across part of these ruins in his first Peruvian expedition, but he failed to fully explore them after dismissing the structures as unimpressive. Further excavations will confirm that the ruins Gene and Antonio discover at Espiritu Pampa are those of Vilcabamba, the real lost capital of the Incas.

But even though Machu Picchu is not the mythical city Hiram hoped it was, the site will still attract unprecedented attention from tourists around the world. Its bewitching granite structures will draw as many as one and a half million visitors every year, compelling the Peruvian government to restrict tourism to preserve the monument’s integrity.

There will be further controversy about who should be credited with rediscovering Machu Picchu. Some will argue that Hiram does not deserve acknowledgment because he was led to the ruins by local natives and that the site was never really lost to human memory. Tensions will also arise between Peru and Yale University over the rightful ownership of the skeletal remains and artifacts that Hiram removed from the site. The dispute will be resolved in 2011 after Yale agrees to return the items upon the intervention of the American and Peruvian governments.

This collection of Incan artifacts will subsequently go to a museum in Peru where patrons can learn all about Machu Picchu. But much about the ancient city will remain unknown. And named one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu will continue to hold fascinating secrets about its true significance to the Incas even a century after it was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham III on July 24th, 1911.

Outro

Next on History Daily. July 25, 1978. The first baby conceived via In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is born in England, marking the success of an 18-year medical research project.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Rhea Purohit.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.