Lost city Inca site situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World. Machu Picchu was built around 1450, at the height of the Inca Empire. It was abandoned just over 100 years later, in 1572, as a belated result of the Spanish Conquest. It is possible that most of its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by travelers before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the area. In 1911, Melchor Arteaga led the explorer Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu, which
Vilcabamba, Peru the site where Tupac Amaru fled after the Spanish captured Vitcos. Bingham speculated in his book Lost City of the Incas that Machu Picchu was the lost city of Vilcapampa the Old, in part because Bingham only saw a small portion of Espíritu Pampa. It remained for Gene Savoy to discover the full extent of the site in 1964, and later evidence did confirm the site was indeed the old Vilcabamba. In the 1960s, the explorations and discoveries of Antonio Santander Casselli and Gene Savoy finally associated the "Espíritu Pampa" site with the legendary Vilcabamba. Their 1970 book "Antisuyo" brought