Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas (review)

This is a welcome paperback edition of the original cloth publication which won the Philip Johnson "Best Catalogue of the Year" Award from the Society of Architectural Historians in 2007. Much more than a catalogue, however, this is a collection of outstanding scholarly essays that significantly advance our understanding of the importance of the legendary Inca site, recently elected one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World." The majesty and mystery that has surrounded Machu Picchu since its (re)discovery by the American scholar and explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911 contributed to the eternal fascination that has attracted generations of visitors, but providing little reliable information as to the history of its creation, its function and meaning within the structure of the Inca Empire or Tawantinsuyo. However, thanks to the archaeological research of the last two decades fully documented in this publication, a number of original conclusions reached by Bingham himself can now be superseded in the light of new discoveries.

Special credit for this achievement must go to renowned archaeologists Richard L Burger and Lucy C. Salazar, responsible for organizing and curating the exhibition under the same title that opened at Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History in March of 2002 and later traveled to the Houston Museum of Natural Science (2004) and the Field Museum in Chicago (2005). Most importantly, this unprecedented event permitted the reexamination of the archaeological material excavated by Bingham at Machu Picchu largely between July and November of 1912 which had remained in storage at Yale's Peabody Museum since that time and gave the academic community and general public the first opportunity to view this incomparable collection. The hope that the exhibition would become a permanent feature of the Peabody Museum remains uncertain to this date, however, due to an unresolved agreement between Yale and Peruvian officials asking for the return of the antiquities to their country.

Reproduced as the opening chapter of the book is Bingham's seminal article "The Discovery of Machu Picchu," originally published in Harper's Monthly magazine in 1913. This was a sensitive inclusion on the part of the editors, for it was Bingham's first detailed account of his find and vividly captures the excitement of the big adventure that would revolutionize South American pre-Columbian archaeology.

The accompanying contemporary photographs that complemented the April 1913 special issue of The National Geographic Magazine entirely devoted to Bingham's expedition of 1912 are extremely important because they show the Inca remains in the condition that they were found. Comparisons with photographs taken today help to dispel claims that Machu Picchu has been the subject of extensive reconstruction. It should also be noted that despite the fact that Bingham was not a professional archaeologist, he was very careful in documenting what he saw; and he had the foresight of engaging other specialists such as the osteologist George Eaton and the naturalist and chemist Harry Foote during his second expedition.

The following chapter by Lucy Salazar titled "Machu Picchu: Mysterious Royal Estate in the Cloud Forest," places the site in the context of the most recent scholarly research, which has sometimes confirmed Bingham's intuitions but also substantially refuted others. As it turns out, Machu Picchu was neither the "last city of the Incas" nor the "lost city of the Incas," as Bingham claimed. The actual "last city of the Incas" that he set out to find was known by the name of Vilcabamba or Espíritu Pampa, but this was actually in a different location reached by the American explorer Gene Savoy in 1964. The documentary evidence indicated this settlement had been occupied by the Spaniards after the fall of the Inca Empire (whereas no such evidence had been found at Machu Picchu). Machu Picchu was also known to the natives of the region who...