Hiram Bingham III Stuart McNairn whose descendants claim that they had already climbed to the ruins in 1906). Also the Cusco explorers Enrique Palma, Gabino Sanchez and Agustín Lizarraga are said to have arrived at the site in 1901. Bingham returned to Peru in 1912, 1914 and 1915 with the support of Yale and the National Geographic Society. In "The Lost City of the Incas" (1948), Bingham related how he came to believe that Machu Picchu housed a major religious shrine and served as a training center for religious leaders. Modern archaeological research has since determined that the site was not a religious
Machu Picchu accompany a deceased noble in the afterlife. Animal, liquid and dirt sacrifices to the gods were much more common, made at the Altar of the Condor. The tradition is upheld by members of the New Age Andean religion. Machu Picchu lies in the southern hemisphere, 13.164 degrees south of the equator. It is northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about above mean sea level, over lower than Cusco, which has an elevation of . As such, it had a milder climate than the Inca capital. It is one of the most important archaeological sites