Lost and found

Latin Trade, Feb, 2004

A team of explorers from Britain and the United States recently claimed to have uncovered an extensive, overgrown ruiu a bit more than three kilometers from Peru's famed Machu Picchu. Or did they? Explorer Hiram Bingham documented Llactapata. meaning "high town," sketchily in 1913 in the U.S. magazine National Geographic, which the new explorers admit in their report; again in 1982 by a number of the new "rediscovery" team; and once more in 1985 by someone else entirely.

The new team says it turned to Bingham's unpublished journals to fully uncover the site and understand its significance, which is detailed exhaustively in their field report. Of course, Bingham himself notes that Peruvians living nearby were fully aware of the place by the time he came along. As it happens, the newest discoverers are also filmmakers and writers, one of whom runs an adventure tour company offering trips in Peru, Mexico and the United States, a detail skipped by major media coverage of the Llactapata find. Llactapata is no doubt interesting, but one wonders how much "discovering" a single place can withstand.