(Above: Herman Göhring’s 1874 map of the Cuzco area depicted the twin peaks of “Macchu-Picchu” and “Huainu-Picchu,” but indicated no ruins; map published by Daniel Buck in The South American Explorer in January, 1993)
Fights of Machu Picchu (Part 3)
By Daniel Buck
Maps
The earliest cartographical reference to Machu Picchu, as either a peak or a ruin, appears on “Mapa de los Valles de Paucartambo, Lares, Ocobamba y la Quebrada del Vilconota Levantado por Herman Gohring Enginiero Estado, Cuzco, Diciembre 1874,” accompanying the report, Informe al Supremo Gobierno del Perú Sobre la Expedición a los Valles de Paucartambo en 1873 (Lima, 2nd. ed., 1877). Like von Hassel, Gohring was a German engineer in service to the Peruvian government. In a…
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Fights of Machu Picchu
By Daniel Buck
Part 2
Dr. Kessler continued his research at the McNairn family library in England, however, and in March 1983 he wrote to Carolyn Anderson, the National Geographic’s resident authority on Machu-Picchu-Discovery claims, to report his startling conclusion that his father-in-law had been mistaken…
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(Above: A view of the Machu Picchu ruins (center left) and Vilcanota/Urubamba River by Hiram Bingham in 1912)
Note: Recent press reports have circled the globe claiming that a German, Augusto R. Berns, discovered and looted Machu Picchu long before the American, Hiram Bingham, “discovered” them in 1911. In an upcoming interview, the American explorer/researcher, Paolo Greer, whose research formed the basis for these press reports, will talk at length about what he actually did or did not discover about Augusto R. Berns. In the meantime, I’m republishing here an article (not previously available on the web) that was written by the American researcher/author Daniel Buck about earlier claims by an Englishman and a German that they had discovered Machu Picchu, not Hiram Bingham. Buck has written his own introductory preface, which follows below… KM
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