Who found Machu Picchu? How a German may have beaten the Americans to lost Inca city

[Judi Lynn]

Who found Machu Picchu?

How a German may have beaten the Americans to lost Inca city

By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent
Monday, 2 June 2008

When Peruvian locals led Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu in 1911, it was a discovery which would make the Yale professor famous, highly respected and richer.

Bingham went on to become a governor of Connecticut and member of the US senate, and his book on Machu Picchu became a bestseller. Such was his prominence in early 20th century archaeology, that some have speculated that Bingham was the inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones.

But Bingham's claim to be the first to discover Peru's lost city of the Incas is looking more than a little doubtful. Detailed investigations by a US historian have revealed that Machu Picchu was, in fact, discovered over 40 years earlier by a German businessman.

Little is known about Augusto R Berns, an obscure entrepreneur now largely lost to history, but documents unearthed in US and Peruvian archives by the American historian Paolo Greer, reveal that Berns discovered Peru's most famous archaeological site in the late 1860s before setting up a company specifically to loot Machu Picchu and its immediate surroundings.

Berns had set up a railway sleeper production business in Peru, and stumbled on the unknown ruins of Machu Picchu after purchasing nearby land to fell trees for timber. He explored the mountain citadel ruins between 1867 and 1870.

More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/who-found-machu-picchu-838255.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. German 'may have cleaned out Machu Picchu first'

German 'may have cleaned out Machu Picchu first'
Posted 55 minutes ago

A team of historians say the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru might have been ransacked by an adventurer decades before a 20th century expedition brought it to the world's attention.

It is generally accepted that Peru's biggest tourist attraction was discovered by the 1911 expedition of an American explorer, Hiram Bingham.

But the historians say analysis of Peruvian archives indicate that a German adventurer, Augusto Berns, may have ransacked the citadel's tombs in 1867.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/06/2267667.htm

[Judi Lynn]

2. More information: Machu Picchu may have been looted decades before arrival of Yale scholar, historia

Machu Picchu may have been looted decades before arrival of Yale scholar, historian says
LESLIE JOSEPHS, Associated Press Writer

June 5, 2008 3:34 PM

LIMA, Peru (AP) - The jungle-shrouded Inca citadel of Machu Picchu may have been rediscovered - and looted - decades before the Yale scholar credited with the find first got there, a researcher said Thursday.

Most academics say Yale University's Hiram Bingham III rediscovered the site in Peru's verdant southeastern Andes during a 1911 expedition.

But Paolo Greer, a retired Alaska oil pipeline foreman, says otherwise. Thirty years of digging through files in the United States and Peru led him to maps and documents showing that a German businessman named Augusto R. Berns got there first.

Berns purchased land across from Machu Picchu in 1867, and an 1887 document even shows he set up a company to plunder the site, Greer told The Associated Press.

Berns wrote that Machu Picchu '''will undoubtedly contain objects of great value, and form part of those treasures of the Incas,''' Greer said.

More:
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565310437651253472