High on a ridge in the Peruvian Andes, more than two thousand metres above sea level, lies one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. Machu Picchu, a city of grey stone walls, narrow terraces and steep staircases, was built by the Inca in the fifteenth century and abandoned less than a hundred years later. For nearly four centuries afterward, the site was known mainly to the local farmers whose fields surrounded it.
This changed in 1911, when an American historian named Hiram Bingham arrived in the region in search of the last Inca capital. A young local man led him up a difficult mountain path, and at the top Bingham found the ruins almost completely covered by forest. He took photographs, made drawings and returned in later years to supervise clearing and mapping work sponsored by Yale University and the National Geographic Society.
Bingham became famous as the "discoverer" of Machu Picchu, but more recent research has complicated that picture. Documents kept by Peruvian families show that the site had been visited by treasure hunters and mapmakers decades earlier, and that at least one German prospector had described its walls in print. What Bingham truly contributed was not a first sighting but a careful record that brought the city to a global audience.
Today Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most visited places in South America. Its popularity has also created serious problems. Erosion from hundreds of thousands of footsteps each year, pressure from new hotels and disputes over artefacts taken abroad have all forced Peruvian authorities to tighten access and rethink how such a site should be protected.