An 1874 map showing Machu PicchuPosted on 06/03/2008 12:01:08 PM PDT by BGHater
Machu Picchu, the crown of the Inca trail, was ransacked 40 years before its discovery by an American explorer in the early 20th Century, new research claims.
One of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, the citadel, hidden by clouds 8,000 feet above sea level, has become a pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of travellers every year.
Historians have always thought that it lay undiscovered for centuries after the fall of the Incan Empire in the 1530s, until being brought to the attention of the modern world by an American explorer, Hiram Bingham, in 1911.
But a research team including a British scientist believe that "the lost city of the Incas" could have been "discovered" more than four decades previously, by a German adventurer who looted the site with the help of the Peruvian government.
Built between 1460 and 1470 by the emperor Pachacuti, Incan legend has it that Machu Picchu was constructed to celebrate the defeat of a rival tribe.
It came to prominence with the arrival of Bingham, a real life Indiana Jones character, who worked as a historian at Yale and funded his South American research through the fortune of his heiress wife.
In 1912 Bingham led an expedition to take thousands of artifacts from the site back to Yale.
Still held at the university, most of the pieces are bones or pots, many of them broken and fragmented.
New documents uncovered by a team led by Paolo Greer, an Alaskan Researcher, could reveal why so little remained at the ruin for Bingham to take.
His team have discovered maps, letters and other long lost documents that suggest that the first non Peruvian to stumble upon the site was called Augusto R Berns in 1867.
They say a "machine" with large iron wheels, that Bingham was recorded as seeing when he first arrvied at the site, was actually a sawmills brought to Peru by Berns.
Records reveal that in 1867 he was the owner of a large estate close to the site, from where he sold timber to the railways.
By 1881 after abandoning that enterprise, the adventurer was advertising the "lst mine of the Incas" in an attempt to start a Peruvian gold rush, despite the area being made of granite.
But it is a document uncovered by the researchers in the National Library of Peru which points to Berns's link to Machu Picchu.
In a letter he boasts of finding "significant rustic buildings and underground structures that have been closed with stones", believed to be the first written description of Machu Picchu.
These, he speculates, would "undoubtedly contain objects of great value and prove part of the treasure of the Incas."
In the same document, he claims that he has the backing of the "Supreme government" to access and sell the treasures.
Dr Alex Chepstow-Lusty, who has seen the documents, said: "Machu Picchu is locally thought to be the last resting place of one of the Incan empire's most significant leaders, Pachacuti, who transformed the fortunes of the Incans from a small ethnic group to the major force in the area. It is difficult to estimate but there is a strong possibility that he would have been buried with ancient artifacts as well as gold and silver that were then taken by Berns."
However, because the Incas did not leave behind written evidence, it is impossible to know what artifacts may have been taken by Berns.
Dr Chepstow-Lusty, an English scientist who has previously detailed the rise and fall of the Inca empire, using fossilised mites, said that Berns's action would not have been considered unreasonable by the standards of the time.
He said: "It would not have been seen as looting in those days, it was pretty standard practice and entirely what the English were doing in Egypt and other places."
The team hopes now to trace the families of those who worked or had business dealings with Berns, or even his possible descendents, in an attempt to build a fuller picture of the man, who disappears from records towards the turn of the century.
An 1874 map showing Machu Picchu
Those pesky gringo savages!!! I blame Teddy Roosevelt!!!
Wait — does it say that it was ransacked by a German guy or by an American?
for later
I’ve never been there, but I’d bet it’s awesome.
Having my adventures funded by an heiress wife looks like the way to go in my next incarnation .
John Heinz Kerry and John "my-wife-is-a-beer-heiress" McCain can attest to that....
I am sure, given enough time, some Lib will tell us that "Augusto R Berns" is Prescott Bush's original name...
Ransacked by both. Serial pillaging.
The bus ride up to it is quite hair raising I’m told.
Awesome is the word for it! It’s beautiful. The air is thin but for anyone into visiting ruins, this is one place to put on your list. Peru is a pretty neat place, too (post Shining Path, that is).
I have a rabbit farm that is also hare raising...
Problem: at what point do we stop laughing?
Was Mr Berns / Burns described as old, thin, mostly bald, and given to rubbing his hands together while proclaiming, “Excellent!” I wonder ...
Strangely enough, The HD Science Channel had a “Sunrise at Macchu Picchu” this AM.
Nothing but MP scenery in High Def.
Very nice.
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Note: this topic is from 06/03/2008. Thanks BGHater. |
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