Historians have uncovered documents and maps suggesting the city had been lost and found several times before the man who officially discovered the ruins, American Hiram Bingham, got there.
Funded by the National Geographic Society and friends at Yale University, Mr Bingham discovered the Peruvian city of stone terraces in 1911, earning his place among the pantheon on the world's greatest explorers...
Soon after Bingham led his expeditions to Machu Picchu, claims surfaced that a British missionary, Thomas Payne, and a German engineer, J.M. von Hassel, had beaten him there. And maps found by historians show references to Machu Picchu as early as 1874.
The latest challenge comes from recently publicized claims raising the possibility that a German adventurer arrived at Machu Picchu and looted it decades before Bingham even set foot in Peru. Records show that the German, Augusto Berns, purchased land in the 1860s opposite the Machu Picchu mountain, built a sawmill on his property and then tried to raise money from investors to plunder nearby Incan ruins, all with the blessing of the Peruvian government...
Mould de Pease said she found in Yale's own archives an 1887 Peruvian government document authorizing Berns to remove treasure from areas that may have included Machu Picchu.
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