The ancient city of Machu Picchu was built by Inca Indians in Peru.
A LOST CITY
They said it couldn’t be found. A young American, Hiram Bingham, tried
many times and had no luck. And others had tried before him without
success.
But Hiram did not give up. He would find one of the lost cities that the
Inca Indians had built hundreds of years before, even if he had to climb
a hundred mountains.
The Inca Indians ruled in Peru more than four hundred years ago. As one
story goes, they built cities near the tops of mountains. Many years
later, people kept hearing about the cities, but nobody could find one.
Did Inca cities really exist? Hiram thought so, and he was determined to
prove it. So he began another climb.
Near the top of the mountain, he saw something through the bushes. Stone
buildings, walls, and temples—the ruins of a whole city! He walked in
and around the buildings. They were made of huge stone blocks fitted
tightly together without any mortar between them. And, instead of
streets, steps linked one building to another.
Now Hiram knew that this must be one of the lost Inca cities because it
matched the descriptions he had read about them. Nobody knew the name of
this Inca city, so Hiram called it Machu Picchu after a nearby mountain
peak. Machu Picchu (you say: MAH choo PEEK choo) is an Indian word that
means “old peak.”
Buildings in Machu Picchu were made of stones that fit together without
mortar.
