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
Machu Picchu was featured prominently in the film "The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004), a biopic based on the 1952 youthful travel memoir of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. The "NOVA" television documentary "Ghosts of Machu Picchu" presents an elaborate documentary on the mysteries of Machu Picchu. Contemporary multimedia artist Kimsooja used Macchu Picchu as the primary setting for the first episode of her film series "Thread Routes", shot in 2010. The song "Kilimanjaro", from the South Indian Tamil film "Enthiran" (2010), was filmed in Machu Picchu. The sanction for filming was granted only after direct intervention from the Indian government. Machu Picchu is visitable