Hiking the Inca Trail in Peru to Machu Picchu
A hiker on the Inca Trail, Peru
(Note: the best advice I can offer readers for hiking the Inca trail is to book as early as possible–six months would be ideal–wear good shoes, be in good shape, and arrive in the Cuzco area as many days as possible to acclimatise yourself to the altitude. A week in the Andes before heading off is best and the better the shape you are in, the more you will enjoy the hike. By early March, 2008 the trail was booked through the entire summer–KM).
On the Inca Trail, Peru
Detroit Free Press
March 9, 2008
It can no longer be helped. The wetness creeps into my eyes like the condensation that shrouded our tent this morning…
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Evidence that Incas Fattened up their Children Before Sacrificing Them
(Above: Scientists examine a 15-year-old girl who lived in the Inca Empire, then was sacrificed and remained frozen for 500 years)
Incas fattened up their children before sacrifice on the volcano
The Times
October 2, 2007
Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano…
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Inca Girl, Frozen for 500 Years, Now On Display
(Above: The 15-year-old “Llullaillaco Maiden” was sacrificed along with two other children on top of Mt. Llullaillco, in northern Argentina, at 22,000 feet)
In Argentina, A Museum Unveils A Long-Frozen Maiden
September 11, 2007
NYT
SALTA, Argentina — The maiden, the boy, the girl of lightning: they were three Inca children, entombed on a bleak and frigid mountaintop 500 years ago as a religious sacrifice…
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Temple of Ancient Idols and Mummies Discovered in Peru
(Above: The Inca ruins of Sacsayhuaman (also Saqsaywaman) lie just above the city of Cuzco, Peru, at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet)
Ancient Temple Discovered Among Inca Ruins
National Geographic News
March 31, 2008
A temple thought to have once housed idols and mummies has been unearthed near an ancient Inca site in Cusco, Peru…
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Article that Accuses Peruvian Doctor of Having Helped Loot Machu Picchu Questioned
An Antiquities Gallery within the Ethnological Museum of Berlin
SOMOS
(El Comercio)
July 12, 2008
By Dr. Federico Camino Macedo
(Translated by Kim MacQuarrie)
The article in SOMOS 1125 [June 28, 2008, in El Comercio] referred to José Macedo as an ignorant criminal who colluded with the German August R Berns in the sacking, looting, and commercialization of the treasures of Machu Picchu. In reality, the former is Doctor Mariano José Macedo Cazorla (born in Ayaviri in 1823; died in Lima in 1894), a prestigious medical doctor who introduced the study and scientific treatment of epidemics to Peru and who, according to Carlos Enrique Paz Soldán, was “the greatest hygienist of his time” (La Vida y Obra de Mariano José Macedo; Lima, 1945, page 48)…
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Did a German Adventurer Discover Machu Picchu Before Hiram Bingham? An Interview with Paolo Greer (Part 1)
An Interview With Paolo Greer
Part 1
Note: Recently, a number of stories have emerged in the press alleging that a German adventurer and businessman, Augusto R. Berns, discovered and/or looted Machu Picchu decades before Hiram Bingham arrived at the now famous Inca site in 1911. The stories, for the most part, owe their origin to a 57-year-old American explorer and researcher named Paolo Greer, who claims that he has discovered old maps and other documents showing that Augusto R. Berns created a company, “Huacas del Inca,” or “The Inca Idols Company,” that “was formed to sack Machu Picchu.” In a recent article, Greer also stated that “Although Bingham was directed to Machu Picchu, not by Augusto Berns but by Albert Giesecke, the head of the University of Cuzco, Berns was probably the prospector Bingham had heard about, the one who had been to Machu Picchu decades before him.”
Since the publication of Greer’s article, various reporters have interviewed a number of people in Peru and elsewhere who have claimed to either have worked on Greer’s “research team” or else have accused Greer of having appropriated their work. To help clarify what Greer did or did not discover, and how and when he made his discoveries, the following is Part 1 of an interview with Paolo Greer… (KM)
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Machu Picchu: Earliest Maps and 19th Century (pre-Hiram Bingham) Visitors
(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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Englishman and German Claimed to Have Discovered Machu Picchu Before Hiram Bingham (Part 2)
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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Englishman and German Claimed to Have Discovered Machu Picchu Before Hiram Bingham (Part 1)
(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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Three Historians Support American’s Claim that Machu Picchu was Looted Before Hiram Bingham
The Search For the Treasure
By Enrique Sanchez Hernani
SOMOS (El Comercio)
June 28, 2008
(translated by Kim MacQuarrie)
Vestiges. Documents that could confirm the discovery of Machu Picchu by a German adventurer a half century before Hiram Bingham, reveal new evidence about the monumental looting.
In the beginning of June, news shook scientific and historical circles: the German dealer August R. Berns had carried away the majority of the archaeological remains at Machu Picchu 44 years before Bingham arrived in this country…
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