Machu Picchu, one of the world’s best-known archaeological sites, may have been misnamed for more than a hundred years since it was first visited by US explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911
File image of Machu Picchu ruins. AFP
Machu Picchu, one of the world’s best-known archaeological sites, may have been misnamed for more than a hundred years since it was first visited by US explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911.
According to The Guardian, a new academic paper has argued that since its rediscovery more than a century ago, the site has been known by the wrong name.
The 15th century Inca site has been closely studied for decades and a tourist attraction for just as long.
Let’s take a look why experts think Machu Picchu was wrongly named and what is its real name:
According to The Guardian report, a Peruvian historian and a US archaeologist have argued that the UNESCO World Heritage Site was known by its Inca inhabitants as Huayna Picchu, named after the mountain peaks overlooking the ruins – or simply Picchu.
After reviewing Bingham’s original field notes from 110 years ago, early 20th century maps of the region and land documents from different archives, historian Donato Amado Gonzales from the Ministry of Culture of Peru (Cusco) and archaeologist Brian S Bauer from the University of Illinois Chicago have argued that less was known about the site than what was previously thought.
In their paper, published by Nawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology, the researchers found that not even a single source referred to the site as Machu Picchu.
“We began with the uncertainty of the name of the ruins when Bingham first visited them and then reviewed several maps and atlases printed before Bingham’s visit to the ruins,” said Bauer, as per the report.
“There is significant data which suggest that the Inca city actually was called Picchu or more likely, Huayna Picchu.”
While scouring archives, maps and documents, the researchers found a 1904 atlas that was published seven years before Bingham first arrived in Peru. The atlas mentions the ruins of an Inca town called Huayna Picchu.
It is believed that Bingham asked a local landowner to record the site’s name in his field journal.
Moreover, the researchers said that Bingham was told in 1911 of ruins called Huayna Picchu along the Urubamba River before he left Cusco to search for the site.
The landowner’s son later told Bingham in 1912 that the ruins were called Huayna Picchu, they add.
According to Bauer, the most definitive connections to the original name of the city are preserved within accounts by Spaniards after they took over the region.
“We end with a stunning, late 16th-century account when the indigenous people of the region were considering returning to reoccupy the site which they called Huayna Picchu,” he said.
In most images of the Incan city, the little and steep mountain behind the ruins is known as ‘Huayna Picchu,’ while the bigger, sloped hill to the south is known as ‘Machu Picchu.’
The peak now known as Huayna Picchu remains part of the archaeological site and visitors can hike to the summit to get the most breathtaking view of the mountaintop ruin.
With inputs from agencies
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