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
Charlton Heston of killer ants. He played the lead in "Secret of the Incas", which was shot on location at the archeological site Machu Picchu and had numerous similarities to "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Filmed a quarter-century before the latter film, ""Incas"" included a tomb scene with the revelatory shaft of light pointing out a clue on a map and featured Heston's roguish antiquities thief's costume and light beard; "Raiders" costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis noted that it was "almost a shot for shot similar" to the film on which she worked. Heston played William Clark, the explorer, in "The Far