Not exactly Indiana Jones

June 06, 2008

Meet Hiram Bingham. If you look at this picture carefully, chances are high you’ll feel familiar with him.

Generally credited for discovering Machu Picchu in 1911, the slouch hatted Bingham is also widely cited as the inspiration for Harrison Ford's archaeologist-hero Indiana Jones.

The discovery of the "lost city of the Incas" -- built in around 1450 by the Inca emperor Pachacuti -- made Bingham famous and highly respected.

The Yale lecturer became a governor of Connecticut, a member of the US senate, and his book on Machu Picchu became a bestseller.

Was he a real life Indiana Jones character? Not exactly. Evidence is mounting that he might have not deserved all that glory. Detailed investigations have revealed that it wasn't Bingham who found the mysterious mountaintop citadel, nor did he really find any major treasure -- although he did not leave empty-handed.

Documents uncovered in archives in Peru and the U.S. by Paolo Greer, an independent American researcher and explorer, show that Machu Picchu was, in fact, discovered in 1867 --over 40 years earlier - by an obscure German adventurer named Augusto Berns.

Full details of Greer's research will be published in the next issue of South American Explorer Magazine .

Basically, the documents prove that Berns set up a company specifically to loot Machu Picchu with the Peruvian government's blessing. Berns was allowed to export the artifacts on the condition to give the government a 10 per cent share of the profits.

According to Alex Chepstow-Lusty, an Inca specialist who has previously detailed the rise and fall of the Inca empire using fossilised mites, the discovery has important implications.

"This story is highly relevant at the moment as the Peruvians are currently in negotiation after many years of wrangling for the return of the artifacts that Hiram Bingham deposited at Yale University and shall set up a museum in Cuzco to house them. They will be disappointed with the 40,000 odd fragments of bones and pottery as the ‘treasure’ of Machu Picchu has already gone," Chepstow-Lusty told me.

I have been given access to some of the documents Greer discovered. Here is a sketch map of the area by Berns' partner. It describes a hut called "La Maquina". This was actually part of a sawmill which the German adventurer ran in the area, after purchasing 25 kilometres of land with the intention of selling timber to the railways.

By 1881, after abandoning that enterprise, Berns tried to sell the place as the "first mine of the Incas", despite the area being made of granite.

Greer also found a lost geology book which contains the oldest known map of Machu Picchu. Dated 1874, it clearly indicated two peaks, "Machu Picchu" and "Huaina Picchu".

But it's this booklet which clearly shows Berns's link to Machu Picchu. The booklet explained Berns' newer project, a venture he called "Compañia Anónima Limitada Huacas del Inca". It was a company having to do with the exploitation of an Inca "huaca" or "sacred place" (see Berns’ handmade map of the area).

Finally, here is my phone interview with Paolo Greer.

(Pictures: courtesy of Alex Chepstow-Lusty)

Comments

[Daniel Buck]

The idea that A.R. Berns looted Machu Picchu in the 19th century is not true. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that Berns even set foot in the archaeological ruin, let alone looted it.

Berns set up a stock company, "HUacas del Inca," in Peru in 1887 (the 1867 date in some stories is an error) with the purported goal of searching for Inca treasure, but no evidence has been presented to date — other than unbridled speculation, which only Baron Von Munchausen considers evidence — that he ever even turned a spade. Berns seemed more interested in the treasures in his investors’ pockets.

The idea that Huacas del Inca refers to Machu Picchu is ludicrous. It's a generic phrase, meaning "Tombs of the Inca" or "Sacred Places of the Incas," that Berns affixed to his scheme, and does not refer specifically to any one Incaic site.

Berns had launched another company a few years earlier, in 1881, soliciting investments in a gold and mining venture on Torontoy, a property in Peru that he claimed had more such precious metals that any other site in the world. Nothing came of that venture either.

A gold mine is a hole in the ground atop which stands a liar — attributed to Mark Twain -- in this caser the liar is A.R. Berns.

On the larger question -- discovery -- Hiram Bingham is justifiably famed as the "scientific discoverer" of Machu Picchu, that is, he encountered, excavated, photographed, studied, and made known to the outside world the ruins known today as Machu Picchu.

The site was never completely unknown. Peruvian historians have found records of the ruins' existence going back to the 16th century. One might argue that it was never absolutely abandoned. So even if Berns visited the site in 1887 -- and there's no evidence that he did -- he's at the tail end of a long line that stretches back to the 1500s.

Dan Buck

[Rossella Lorenzi]

Received from Paolo Greer:

Dear Ms. Lorenzi,

Dan Buck wrote, "The idea that A.R. Berns looted Machu Picchu in the 19th century is not true. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that Berns even set foot in the archaeological ruin, let alone looted it … other than unbridled speculation … The idea that Huacas del Inca refers to Machu Picchu is ludicrous," et cetera.

Buck has negative commentary about my article on other web pages, as well.

Despite my research having been printed in more newspapers than I imagined possible, such invalidation has been initiated by only one other person, a Peruvian author who has often represented my work as her own and is now trying to cover her tracks.

Perhaps, in order to judge what I wrote, your readers might want to check out my original article for themselves. Kim MacQuarrie has posted it in two parts on his blog at:

http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=136
http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=139

My story first appeared in the South American Explorers magazine, released in June 2008. The SAE's slightly abridged version can also be downloaded from their website.

Augusto Berns' base camp was established in 1867 at what is now Aguas Calientes, the town at the foot of Machu Picchu. For many years, using locals guides, Berns explored the region.

Berns' 1887 company to loot the ruins, which he called "Huacas del Inca" ("Tombs of the Incas"), was only a part of my article. However, I did give evidence why I believe the German was in Machu Picchu, more than forty years before Bingham named the site what we call it today.

I also wrote about the Pachacuti's tomb in "Patallacta" or "Machu Picchu". Pachacuti was the Genghis Khan of the Incas and died before the arrival of the Spaniards.

Unfortunately, neither the Incas nor Berns took photos, or carved their names in large letters upon the ruins. So, I made a few common sense deductions based on the facts. Of course, it helps to read history objectively.

Actually, you can find an obvious example of Dan Buck's misinterpretations on your own web page by comparing the brief 2:33 minute recording you made of me with Buck's own words. In another of his denunciations, much like the one above, Buck actually referred to our conversation that you have posted here.

He wrote, "in a recent interview on Discovery radio, Greer said quite clearly that Berns didn't loot anything" (MacQuarrie's blog comments: http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=147).

Since I do not believe "that Berns didn't loot anything" and doubt I said it, I listened to your recording again.

What I said was: 1:32 "I will not say what a lot of people are trying to get me to say that he (Berns) took out treasure…" and,

2:12 "Now, there are things that he (Berns) probably took out but I don't know what they are" … and then I mention some pieces of iron that Berns did find and send to the States.

If Dan Buck "quite clearly" heard me say something that I did not say, it is no wonder that he thinks my historical evidence is "ludicrous".

Anyone who would like, can easily read my full story at the URLs above and decide on their own if my "speculation is unbridled."

Buona fortuna,

Paolo Greer

[Daniel Buck]

There is no, repeat no evidence that A.R. Berns knew of, visited, intended to loot, or looted Machu Picchu.

The fact that Berns set up a company called "Huacas del Inca" is not proof of anything. It's a generic name, like "Treasure Galleons of the Spanish" or "Gold Mines of the Rockies." Neither the name of Berns's 1887 company nor the 1887 concession that Berns obtained from the Peruvian government to excavate ruins names any specific site. There are inumerable Inca ruins in the Urubamba and La Convencion districts of Cuzco. Some undiscovered even today.

In his June 6, 2008, Discovery interview, Greer says, " "I will not say, but a lot of people are trying to get me to say, that he [Bern] took out treasure." That's pretty clear.

Later, Greer says, "Now there are things that he [Berns] probably took out. I don't know what they are" That's contradictory.

So which is it? He did or he didn't? It's impossible for me to square those two remarks, though the first one is more definitive than the "I don't know what they are."

If there is specific evidence of Bern's presence at Machu Picchu, Greer should present it. We might all learn something. But so far, in spite of his speculations having landed in, by his count, a couple hundred media stories, there is no evidence.

Dan Buck

[Daniel Buck]

It might be useful, in reference to the current discussion, to view the text of the aforementioned June 6 interview. There is nothing in the interview that supports the idea that A.R. Berns was in any way linked to Machu Picchu.

What Greer has "put together" is the notion that when Berns named his company Huacas del Inca he must have meant Machu Picchu, But that is speculation, not evidence.

In fact, as we know, in connection with Bern's previous enterprise, an 1881 swindle that Greer alludes to, in which he attempted to raise millioms of dollars to develop non-existant gold and silver mines on his Torontoy property, Berns named one of the sites on his property, which he claimed was a tunnel filled with Inca mummies, "Point Huacas del Inca."

In other words, in Berns's previous stock-company scam he had already used the phrase "Huacas del Inca," but in reference to a site having nothing to do with Machu Picchu.

Dan Buck

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On the phone from Peru, Paolo Greer
June 6, 2008

[GREER:]

Machu Picchu is the most famous ruins in the Americas. It is generally understood that Hiram Bingham discovered them in 1911. However, I found out the information that a German was there. He probably got there about 1870. He bought 25 kilometers, across from Machu Picchu, in 1867. What he intended to do was cut railroad ties, sleepers, for the railroad. That didn’t happen right then, so then he tried to sell the area as mines. It was 25 kilometers along the river, but it was also 15 kilometers thick. It was a huge, huge area. So then he pretended that there were a lot of rich mines there, which there were not, and eventually what he did was, he formed a company to loot Machu Picchu.

Now, people miss this for a lot of reasons. One, nobody knew that this information existed. I found it in many different places over the years, and put it together. Another thing is that he did not use the name “Machu Picchu.” He simply called it “Huaca del Inca,” which is like “Sacred Place” or “Ruins of the Inca,” something like that, and he formed the company to plunder Machu Picchu, with the permission of the Peruvian government, which was fine with them. All they wanted was 10 percent of gold, silver, and jewels, and they said you can take the rest of it anywhere you want, and do what you want with it.

I will not say, but a lot of people are trying to get me to say, that he took out treasure.

I don’t think that Hiram Bingham took very much. He took a lot of bones and pieces of ceramics, but none of us have seen pictures of fabulous things that he took out, because he simply did not.

However, Berns was in Machu Picchu before Hiram Bingham was born and – Hiram Bingham was born in 1875 – but it was 20 years later, after Berns first bought the land, that he formed the company to loot Machu Picchu, and Bingham was alive then, but he had never heard of Machu Picchu at that point.

Now there are things that he probably took out. I don’t know what they are. One thing, I held in my hand was some pieces of metal, iron, that Berns had sent to the United States. I think that they’re very important because it might prove that the Spanish or probably looters were in Machu Picchu before Berns.
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[Paolo Greer]

“There is no, repeat no evidence that A.R. Berns knew of, visited, intended to loot, or looted Machu Picchu,” Dan Buck.

Already, Buck has written more words of invalidation about my article on various web sites than were contained in the original story.

I agree with him that, “The fact that Berns set up a company called ‘Huacas del Inca’ is not proof of anything,” and “There are inumerable Inca ruins in the Urubamba and La Convencion districts of Cuzco.”

It is also true that these and other tidbits, in themselves, aren’t much proof that Berns was in Machu Picchu, especially if taken out of context to pretend that such comments, alone, were my argument.

In fact, if readers were to ignore my article completely and depend solely upon Buck’s ongoing harangue, no connection between Machu Picchu and Berns would be apparent.

Or they could read my article for themselves.

Among other things, I wrote that for many years between 1867 and 1881 Berns lived at what is now Aguas Calientes, about two miles from Machu Picchu. During that period, he explored the region, using local guides whose families had been in the area for generations. He purposely searched for ruins.

Berns was in the business of looting Inca tombs and almost certainly made the effort to do so in Machu Picchu, virtually on his doorstep.

Since then, millions of tourists have taken the Machu Picchu shuttle from the site of Berns’ camp to the ruins, just a few minutes away.

There’s no reason to bring in Sherlock Holmes on this one.

Actually, I included enough evidence, including maps, in my account to allow the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. Anyone who wants to read and truly appreciate this research can find my article, “Machu Picchu before Bingham”, at the URL above.

Well, almost anyone.

My two quotes from the Discovery interview above were not contradictory.

I am sure that Berns did make an effort to find something in Machu Picchu, since the German was in the business and what are now the most famous ruins in Peru, if not in the Americas, was a short hike from his camp.

Several reporters were especially eager to know what “treasures” Berns took out, exactly. They wanted something sensational to print. I was asked to detail such golden plunder and I would not.

If Berns kept a list of his spoils, he has not shown it to me.

Thanks to Buck for typing out my interview. Even when the batteries in my hearing aid are fresh, I still miss a word or two.

However, the interview says what I said it did, no matter how “clearly” Buck heard otherwise.

Ms. Lorenzi’s recording above is only two and a half minutes long. It was done when she happened to ring me from Florence, Italy, to a busy internet café in Lima, Peru. In it I did not present the detail I explained in my article, or in the interviews that followed.

These are posted on Kim MacQuarrie’s blog.

Buona fortuna,

Paolo Greer

[Daniel Buck]

In Greer's August 9 post, he now concedes that there is no evidence that A.R. Berns ever visited Machu Picchu.

His fallback position now seems to be that because Berns supposedly lived in Urubamba and supposedly was an explorer and a huaquero, he must have been to Machu Picchu. That sounds to me more like a hope -- there's a pony in here somewhere.

Keep in mind the evidence we have for Berns activities in Urubamba is his 1881 prospectus for the imaginary gold and silver deposits and the imaginary Huacas del Inca mummy tunnel, the same prospectus that excited his potential investors with the news that the Incas had a gold washing sluice there, called Llamajcansha, which Berns helpfully translated as "Gold Yard."

Llamajcansha means, in Quechua, "Llama Yard."
Berns was selling his investors a load of llama dung.

By the way, per the 1876 Peruvian cenus there were at that time more than 17,000 people living in the Urubamba Province. I suggest we designate all of them discovers of Machu Picchu and call it a day.

Dan

[Daniel Buck]

This morning I rec'd from Duke University Library a photocopy of the 48-page prospectus for Berns 1887 Huacas de Inca stock company. It's Indiana Jones mumbo-jumbo, with nary a clue as to any specific archaeological site. The basic premise is that there are ruins out in the hinterlands of Urubamba and La Convencion with unimaginable treasures waiting to be plundered: "las riquisimas y valiosisimas obras de arte que antes de 400 anos adoraban los templos y edificios publicos y reales de la metroploli Imperio Incasico," etc., etc.

Most of the prospectus is devoted to a potted summary of Berns's remarkable achievements, which included several $100 million construction projects (more than $2 billion today), none of which seem to have laid a single brick. My favorite was a $100 million mining project in Arizona. Berns tells his investors, "Arizona es un pais donde se ocupan mas de 500,000 personas en mineria, pues su principal industria es mineria." The total Arizona population in 1880 was 40,440.

The prospectus goes on to say that Berns's Arizona enterprise went so swimmingly that his backers allowed him to go to Peru, but not before bestowing on him stock worth $12 million (nearly a quarter billion dollars in today's currency). And so on.

There is no mention, however, of Berns's 1881 enterprise, the Torontoy gold and silver mine fraud.

The 1887 prospectus compares the Huacas del Inca organizers to Columbus, Galileo, and Robert Fulton. Re the last-mentioned there might be a connection, hot air.

Dan

[Daniel Buck]

Last Sunday, 8/31, La Republica in Lima published my op-ed about the latest Berns controversy, Below is the original essay, in English. The La Republica translation -- available on its website -- is a bit different, though the gist is the same.

Dan

=============================================================
Machu Picchu: Known and Unknown, There and Not There

By Daniel Buck

Mention the phrase "Lost City of the Incas" or "Inca treasure" and normally skeptical journalists drop their guard and credulously report the most unfounded speculations.
Earlier this year, the media worldwide reported that Machu Picchu had been discovered by Augusto R. Berns decades before Hiram Bingham III arrived there in 1911. Some of the stories even suggested that Berns, a German engineer and adventurer who had lived in Peru periodically during the second half of the 19th century, had looted the Inca site. One account said that "Bernsse había cargado en peso la mayoría de los vestigios arqueológicos de Machu Picchu."
The media reports were sparked by speculations from Paolo Greer, a researcher and explorer from Alaska who visits Peru frequently.
There are only two problems with Greer's announcements and the news stories. First, there has been no evidence presented to date that Berns even knew of Machu Picchu's existence, let alone that he visited or looted the site. Second, even if he had visited Machu Picchu in the late 1880s, countless others had preceded him. In any event, since he left no record of any such visit, he discovered nothing.
What Bingham accomplished was entirely distinct. During three expeditions between 1911 and 1915, Bingham excavated, photographed, studied, and made known to the world Machu Picchu. There can be no doubt that Bingham is the site's "scientific discoverer," an honorific bestowed on the Yale professor by José Gabriel Cosío, a Cuzco academic and official delegate to Bingham's second expedition.
It is also true that others had known of the ruins long before Bingham. One can make the case that Machu Picchu was never totally lost. It was periodically known and unknown, there and not there -- visited, lived in, farmed, and even bought and sold – from the 16th century until Bingham permanently removed it from obscurity.
In Urubamba: Benemérita Ciudad y Provincia Arqueológica del Perú (2007), Leandro Zans Candia summarizes colonial and republican era citations to Machu Picchu compiled by several Peruvian historians. But the site's archaeological importance was long ignored, its natural beauty unappreciated. Cosío, writing in the Boletin de la Sociedad Geográfica de Lima in 1912, put it succinctly: "No es verdad que el doctor Bingham haya sido el descubridor de los restos; él les ha dado la vida de la fama y del interés arqueológico."
Bingham was, if anything, a determined explorer. He combed archives, interviewed scholars, collected maps, and queried locals. He already knew about Machu Picchu before he headed down the Urubamba Valley. Yes, it's true that he was not always generous in crediting those who had assisted him. Like many explorers, Bingham had a large ego, a desire for fame, and sharp elbows.
So who was Augusto R. Berns and what does he have to do with Machu Picchu? He apparently – almost everything said about Berns has to be preceded by the word "apparently" because he was a congenital liar, a Baron Munchausen, a fantastist with an engineering degree, which is to say, apparently with an engineering degree. He said that he was born in Germany in 1842 and first came to Peru in the 1860s, and that he had worked on the Southern Peruvian Railway, and later for the Peruvian military. In the late 1870s and early 1880s he said he was outside Peru, chiefly in the United States.
In 1881, while living in Michigan, he organized the first of two enterprises that could more accurately be called swindles, "The Torontoy or Cercada-de-San Antonio Estate in Southern Peru." Berns mailed potential investors a letter, map, and prospectus, claiming that his property in the Urubamba Valley (across the river from the as yet undiscovered Machu Picchu) was in an area that, if developed, would be "universally recognized as the greatest gold and silver producing centre in the world." He declared that there was gold everywhere at Torontoy, loose in the ground and the sand, and in veins in the rocks, clay, and slate. He said that there was an ‘ancient gold-washing apparatus"cut out of solid rock, called "Llamajcansha," which "in the ancient Indian language, means ‘Gold Yard.'" It is unlikely the readers of his prospectus in the United States spoke Quechua, otherwise they would have figured out that Llamajcansha meant "llama yard." Berns was selling a load of llama dung.
Also on his property, near Llamajcansha, there was "said to be," Berns hinted, a tunnel, which, he further hinted, "there is reason to believe "was"used as a tomb to receive embalmed bodies of the Incas," as well as their ornaments. On his map, he marked the tunnel "Huacas del Inca."
In a letter to investors, written from Detroit, Michigan, Berns said that anything "less than $5,000,000 actual cash [dollars] would be inadequate "to develop Torontoy. Five million dollars in today's currency would be more than 100 million dollars. It is not known what became of his swindle, or if he raised a single penny.
At some point Berns returned to Peru, and in 1887 organized another scheme,a stock company called, coincidentally, "Huacas del Inca." The company's 48-page prospectus is Indiana Jones mumbo-jumbo, suggesting that there are unimaginable treasures waiting to be plundered: "las riquísimas y valiosísimas obras de arte" that "adoraban los templos y edifícios públicos y reales de la metrópoli imperio Incasio."
Specifically, the "Huacas del Inca" would be launching expeditions to search for the fabled lost treasure of the Incas,that portion of the Atahualpa ransom that had evaded the Spaniards. Berns told his investors that the "mitad por lo ménos, fué levada consigo por losindios, segun lo consigna la historia, á las montañas inmediatas al Cuzco,ósea las de Paucartambo, Lares y Santa Ana."
If Atahualpa's ransom was not sufficient to impress gullible investors,the company's organizers compared themselves to Columbus and Galileo.
What ultimately happened to "Huacas del Inca" is not known, but in 1888 its vice-president publicly resigned, accusing Berns of having misappropriated funds for personal use and, worse, of failing to launch a single expedition.
Nowhere in any of the materials made public to date about Augusto R. Bernsis there any evidence that he knew about, visited, intended to loot, or did loot Machu Picchu. In a recent post on the science history blog, Archaeorama, blogs.discovery.com, even Paolo Greer conceded that there is no real evidence that Berns ever set foot on Machu Picchu. Even if he did, he's in a long line of visitors that started centuries ago.

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Daniel Buck is free-lance writer residing in Washington, D.C.. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Department of Puno, 1966-67.
==

[Paolo Greer]

Above, Dan Buck says: “Nowhere in any of the materials made public to date about Augusto R. Berns is there any evidence that he knew about, visited, intended to loot, or did loot Machu Picchu. In a recent post on the science history blog, Archaeorama, blogs.discovery.com, even Paolo Greer conceded that there is no real evidence that Berns ever set foot on Machu Picchu. Even if he did, he's in a long line of visitors that started centuries ago.”

There are several problems with Buck’s statement.

For starters, he is blatantly misquoting his own la Republica article.

The last line of Buck’s Peruvian story actually reads, “La verdad es que Greer es uno más en la larga cola de visitantes y “descubridores” de la ciudadela inca.”

That is, instead of, “Even if he did, he's in a long line of visitors that started centuries ago,” Buck’s article really says, “The truth is that GREER is one more of the large line of visitors and “discoverers” of the Inca city.”

Buck may have a point he is trying to make but it isn’t about Machu Picchu.

See: http://www.larepublica.com.pe/component/option,com_contentant/task,view/id,240597/Itemid,0/

In the same paragraph above, Buck boasts, “… even Paolo Greer conceded that there is no real evidence that Berns ever set foot on Machu Picchu,” (earlier in this blog, Buck also wrote; “In Greer's August 9 post, he now concedes that there is no evidence that A.R. Berns ever visited Machu Picchu”).

The problem with that is I am Paolo Greer and I have never said or implied anything of the sort, even if Buck has written as much, repeatedly, on various web sites and now in the Republica newspaper of Lima, Peru.

In fact, Kim MacQuarrie asked me questions directly from Buck.

My answers, that is what I said and not what Buck pretends I said, can be read at: http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=226

My entire article, “Machu Picchu before Bingham”, is on MacQuarrie’s blog at:
http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=136
http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=139

MacQuarrie’s follow up questions and my answers are at:
http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=183
http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=213
http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=226

There are many examples of Buck’s “misinterpretations”, however another telling one can be found on this page.

On MacQuarrie’s blog, Buck wrote: “In a recent interview on Discovery radio, Greer said quite clearly that Berns didn’t loot anything” (http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=147).

Again, no matter how “clearly” Buck heard me say a thing or, at least, makes believe that he did, I said something else quite different.

The brief Discovery interview (2:33 minutes) that he referred to is above.

What I said was (1:32): “I will not say what a lot of people are trying to get me to say that he (Berns) took out TREASURE…” and

(2:12) “Now, there ARE things that he (Berns) probably took out but I don’t know what they are.”

That is, Buck and other sensationalistic reporters seem obsessed with which “Indiana Bingham” “discovered” Machu Picchu first and, of course, “What did they find?”

While Dan Buck is often quick to champion his “scientific discoverer” Hiram Bingham, I do not say that Berns was “first”. I simply give evidence that the German was in Machu Picchu before Buck’s hero was born.

For more than twenty years, from 1867 until the late 1880’s, Augusto Berns maintained the headquarters for his vast land holdings within two miles of Machu Picchu. Relying on local guides who, like their Fathers and Grandfathers before them, were intimately familiar with the area, Berns made it his business to actively seek out Inca ruins.

Read my interview for more details.

Regarding Dan Buck’s fixation on “evidence”, in his own article “The Fights of Machu Picchu” (posted on MacQuarrie’s blog), he stated that in 1894 one Bejar Ugarte was the earliest recorded visitor to Machu Picchu.

Buck’s single source of proof is a few words by an anonymous author in a forty-seven-year old virtually unknown magazine from Cusco, Peru.

If one bothers to read the amazing volume of Buck’s commentary posted on MacQuarrie’s blog, alone, it is apparent that he is much more about “Fights” than “Machu Picchu”.

If, instead, the reader is more interested in the history of the ruins, check out my pre-Bingham Machu Picchu article and longer written interview answering MacQuarrie’s - and Buck’s - questions, at the URLS listed above.

As always, I invite any sensible criticisms.

Paolo Greer

[Daniel Buck]

The LA REPUBLICA version of my article mistranslated the final line. It should read:

“La verdad es que Berns es uno más en la larga cola de visitantes y “descubridores” de la ciudadela inca.”

In the original English, it read: "Even if he did, he's in a long line of visitors that started centuries ago." The "he" being Berns. The translator thought the "he" was Greer.

As for whether or not I misquoted Greer in my essay, the basis for my statement that "Greer conceded that there is no real evidence that Berns ever set foot on Machu Picchu" is Greer's comment above:

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I agree with him [Buck] that, "The fact that Berns set up a company called ‘Huacas del Inca’ is not proof of anything,” and “There are inumerable Inca ruins in the Urubamba and La Convencion districts of Cuzco.”

It is also true that these and other tidbits, in themselves, aren’t much proof that Berns was in Machu Picchu, especially if taken out of context to pretend that such comments, alone, were my argument.
==================================================

"[N]ot proof of anything" and "aren't much proof," sounds like concessions to me.

Perhaps we could cut to the chase. Would Greer favor us with a short statement, 50 words or less, stating the specific evidence than Berns visited and looted Machu Picchu.

Dan

[Marla]

Who the heck is Daniel Buck?

[Joel]

Who cares? Science and history is never exact. History is always written by the winner and we will never know the exact truth. Senor Greer is publishing his interpretation, bravo for him. Unfortunately it is a reflection on the character of Mr. Buck that he is personally attacking Greer instead of trying to disprove him.

[hondo]

Dan ~ you make some good points. But why don't you use your information productively (writing a book or article) instead of destructively (attacking Paolo)?

Paolo ~ why don't you admit Dan is bringing some important information into the discussion?

Both you guys could behave better.