Machu Picchu Picchu a "historic sanctuary". In addition to the ruins, the sanctuary includes a large portion of the adjoining region, rich with the flora and fauna of the Peruvian Yungas and Central Andean wet puna ecoregions. In 1983, UNESCO designated Machu Picchu a World Heritage site, describing it as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization". Bingham was a lecturer at Yale University, although not a trained archaeologist. In 1909, returning from the Pan-American Scientific Congress in Santiago, he travelled through Peru and was invited to explore the Inca ruins at Choqquequirau in the Apurímac
Machu Picchu center. Owned by the National University of San Antonio Abad del Cusco, La Casa Concha also features a study area for local and foreign students. The Paramount Pictures film "Secret of the Incas" (1955), with Charlton Heston and Ima Sumac, was filmed on location at Cusco and Machu Picchu, the first time that a major Hollywood studio filmed on site. Five hundred indigenous people were hired as extras in the film. The opening sequence of the film "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) was shot in the Machu Picchu area and on the stone stairway of Huayna Picchu. Machu Picchu