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 in1867, 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. Peruvian historian Mariana Mould de Pease backs Greer's claim.
She said she found in Yale University archives a letter of understanding between Berns and Peru's then-president to pillage the site, as long as the Peruvian government received 10 percent of the profits.
"He was a scammer," Greer said of Berns. "He was trying to get money."
Greer said he uncovered
other documents showing that Berns, an engineer, had previously set up
a gold mining company near Machu Picchu, even though the granite cliffs
in the area hold little, ifany gold.
David Ugarte Vega, the head
of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of
San Antonio Abad in Cuzco, who has studied Machu Picchu for more than
30 years, said Greer's theory is plausible, but that more investigation
is needed.
"A lot of evidence has
shown that there were many foreign explorers before Bingham," Ugarte
Vega said in a telephone interview. "With all the wealth that existed
in Machu Picchu, it could have been looted before (Bingham), but I
can't say one way or the other without more evidence."
Even if Bingham—who was led
to Machu Picchu by a local Quechua-speaking farmer—wasn't the first
explorer to rediscover the site, he did not leave empty-handed. In
2006, Peru demanded that Yale University return the collection of
artifacts Binghman took fromMac......
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'Apocalypto' now for Mel, Maya and historians
Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found
Stunning Mayan carvings of cosmic monsters
Pre-Incan female Wari mummy unearthed in Peru
Research disputes Maya collapse belief
What caused the fall of the Maya ?
Researchers open cave under Mexican pyramid
Possible Aztec offerings found in Mexico
Mayans played pyramids to make music
