Machu Picchu has become a very popular destination for travel lovers in recent years. Recently it has been declared as one of the 'New Seven Wonders of the World". Now Machu Picchu has become more popular with the travelers who like to travel historic destinations.

We all know, Machu Picchu is known as lost Inca city. But have you ever thought why it is called lost? There are other cities built by Inca civilization, and remained lost, until they were discovered on the last century. But nobody calls them lost city. It seems only Machu Picchu is known as lost city. So there are reasons behind this name. If we get inside the history of Machu Picchu, we may get the answer.

The great "Hiram Bingham" wrote number of books on Machu Picchu after his discovery. I hope you know about Hiram Bingham. He was a Yale historian who went to Peru number of times to discover Inca cities hidden in the deep forest and mountains. Bingham had a very colorful life. He was also a senator of US senate and Governor of Connecticut of United States. You may be surprised to know that he even served in US army and reached to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was an aviator too and served as Instructor for one of the Aviation academy of US navy.

One of Bingham's books was 'Lost City of the Incas', since the publication of the book the name became popular. He named it as lost city, because he thought this city was the last capital of Inca-'Vilcabamba the old', which was lost to Peruvian Historians and could not be traced until 1960. Most important fact is that it was lost to Spaniards too, that is why this city remained intact. All the Incan city were partly of fully destroyed by Spaniards. They did not know about Machu Picchu, so it remained hidden for centuries until Hiram Bingham brought this city to the attention of whole world.

The last Incan capitals:  When Spanish invaders took hold of Peru from Incas, Inca Emperor left their capital (which was Cusco city) and went to deep forest and continued their fighting from there. This place was known as Vitcos. Afterward they shifted to a more remote place, Vilcabamba the Old. When Spaniards got hold of the last Incan Emperor, they destroyed these cities. Afterwards nobody knew the existence or location of those two cities. Historians and Archeologists were always looking for those two cities, but never found them, until they were discovered by Bingham.

How Bingham started: Hiram Bingham visited Santiago, Chile as a delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress in 1908. At this tour he went to Peru. While he was coming back, one of the high officials of Peruvian government requested him to visit one of the Inca city at Choqquequirau, which could be lost Incan capital. He visited that place and found that it was not any of the last Incan capitals. But he became interested in Incan ruins. Though he was a professor of History in Yale University and his subject was South American history, but he did not know much about the ruins beforehand. But after his visit to Choqquequirau he became very much interested in discovery of Incan ruins. After his return he spent long time reading old Spanish Chronicles and papers. He was trying to find out the last two Incan capital. When Manco II left Cusco, he started to live in Vitcos, and continued his battle against Spaniard from Vitcos. But after his death they searched a new place, which should be difficult to reach and in between river and mountains. Finaly they selected a new place from where they could continue battle. This place was the very famous Vilcabamba la vieza, or 'Vilcabamba the old'. Hiram Bingham read about Vitcos and Vilcabamba and just like the Peruvian historian, he was interested to find those cities.

Discovery of Machu Picchu: Bingham started his first expedition to identify lost Inca capitals. While asking people about those cities, he came across a prospector who said there were numerous ruins around Urubamba valley and Huayna Picchu. Since the new government road passed very close to Huayna Picchu, they moved along that way. When they reach closer to Huayna Picchu, they camped one night on Mandor Pampa. That night one person named Melchor Arteaga came into their camp and introduced himself as owner of the area. He said that there were ruins across the river, on top of the mountain Huayna Picchu. He agreed to lead the party towards the ruins, in exchange of fifty cents a day. Next morning they followed him and found the ruins on the ridge called Machu Picchu. Since this ruins had no name, according to the name of the mountain, Hiram Bingham and others started to call it Machu Picchu. Bingham tried to identify this city and mistakenly thought it was the last Incan capital Vilcabamba la vieza.

Bingham actually found Vitcos and even Vilcabamba, which is presently known as Espiritu Pampa, but he did not realize that Espiritu Pampa is Vilcabamba. Bingham died thinking that Machu Picchu was the Vilcabamba he had searched for.

Vilcabamba the old: As I just discussed, Bingham found Vilcabamba the old, which was then (and now too) named as Espiritu Pampa. He failed to realize the importance of this discovery, because he preferred to believe that Machu Picchu was Vilcabamba. Anyway after he died Antonio Santander and Gene Savoy were the very first persons in the 1960s who realized that Espiritu Pampa is the actual Vilcabamba the Old. In 1976 Prof. Edmundo Guillen and Polish explorers Tony Halik and Elibieta Dzikowska again found the ruins. However, before the expedition in a museum in Seville, Spain Guillen discovered letters from Spaniards, in which they were describing the progress of the invasion and what they found in Vilcabamba. Comparison between the letters' content and the ruins provided additional proof of the location of Vilcabamba.

Why Incas left Machu Picchu: Long before the Spaniard conquered Peru, it was abandoned by Incas. That is why when the Spaniards conquered Incas, they did not find it. The Spaniard writers did not write anything about it and that is simply because they did not know about the existence of Machu Picchu. Since most of our present knowledge on Inca civilization is from the writings of Spaniards, until Bingham discovered Machu Picchu, nobody knew anything of it.

Present days it is the most beautiful city of all Incan ruins, because it was not destroyed by the Spaniard. All ruins got some treatment by Spaniard except this city, since they did not know the existence of this city. It is fully understandable that Incas abandoned the city before the Spanish arrival. But it is still mystery whey they abandoned the city.

Machu Picchu - why this beautiful city was built?: Most of the source of information on Inca was the writing of Spaniards, but they did not know about it. So it is difficult to identify the exact reasoning of creation of this city. Archeologist worked hard on this fact during the last few decades. But we still do not know the purpose Machu Picchu served to the Incan. Bingham thought it was Vilcabamba the old- the last Incan Capital. But afterwards it was proved that Machu Picchu is not Vilcabamba.

So what is Machu Picchu? There is lot of speculation on the purpose it served. According to one theory, it was the royal retreat. Other theory states that it was a religious place. Also it is believed that it was an ancient fortress. Because of its location, the city was easily defendable. Think of the steep trail and drawbridges - it was really difficult to conquer the city. But still nobody knows which theory is the true one. That is why it is so mysterious.