On July 24, 1911, Yale University lecturer and amateur archaeologist Hiram Bingham completed a steep climb from Peru's Urubamba River valley through the thin air of the Andes Mountains to one of the most significant and lasting discoveries in archeological history--the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. Perched about 2,400 meters above sea level and 80 kilometers from the onetime Inca capital of Cusco , the "Lost City of the Incas" remained undiscovered by the Spanish throughout their conquest of Peru in the 1500s. As a result Bingham was able to introduce the world to a relatively pristine sanctuary of a once-mighty pre-Columbian empire that would be carefully studied by archeologists, geologists, anthropologists and engineers for a century to come. [More]




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