wondi;rfui, masonry at machu picchu 



Photo by Hiram Bingham 



Two of the windows in the remarkable three-windowed temple at Machu Picchu, which 

 furnishes part of the convincing evidence that Machu Picchu and not Pacaritampu was the 

 home of the ancestors of the Incas (see pages 409, 410, and 414). 



The interest in this historical problem, 

 connected with the fact that at Machu 

 Picchu we had a wonderfully picturesque 

 and remarkably large well-preserved city, 

 untouched by Spanish hands, led us to 

 feel that the entire place needed to be 

 cleared of its jungle and carefully studied 

 architecturally and topographically. 



difp*icui.tie;s o^ the; approach to 



MACHU picchu 



We decided to make a thorough hunt 

 for places of burial and to collect as 

 much osteological and ethnological ma- 

 terial as could be found. Our task was 

 not an easy one. 



The engineers of the 191 1 expedition — 

 H. L. Tucker and P. B. Lanius — who 

 liad spent three weeks here making a 

 preliminary map, had been unable to use 

 the trail by which I had first visited 

 Machu Picchu, and reported that the 

 trail which they used was so bad as to 

 :make it impossible to carry heavy loads 

 over it. 



We knew that mule transportation was 

 absolutely impracticable under these con- 

 ditions, and that it was simply a question 

 of making a foot-path over which Indian 



bearers could carry reasonably good-sized 

 packs. 



The first problem was the construction 

 of a bridge over the Urubamba River to 

 reach the foot of the easier of the two 

 possible trails. 



The little foot-bridge of four logs that 

 I had used when visiting Machu Picchu 

 for the first time, in July, 191 1, was so 

 badly treated by the early floods of th 

 rainy season that when Mr. Tucker went 

 to Machu Picchu at my request, two 

 months later, to make the reconnaissance 

 map, he found only one log left, and was 

 obliged to use a difficult and more dan- 

 gerous trail on the other side of the ridge 



Knowing that probably even this log 

 had gone with the later floods, it was 

 with some apprehension that I started 

 Assistant Topographer Heald out from 

 Cuzco early in July, 19 12, with instruc- 

 tions to construct a bridge across the 

 Urubamba River opposite Machu Picchu, 

 and make a good trail from the river to 

 the ruins — a trail sufficiently good for 

 Indian bearers to use in carrying oui 

 60-pound food-boxes up to the camp and 

 later, our 90-pound boxes of potsherds 



416 



