On 23rd July 1911 Hiram Bingham, an American was directed by local farmers to the ruins of Machu Picchu beside the Urubamba river. Then in August of the same year he reached even more extensive ruins known as Espíritu Pampa hidden in tropical forest of the lower levels of the Vilcabamba mountains almost two weeks trek further on. In Binghams's time the ruins were totally overgrown and immense tree roots covered many of the Inca walls. One of the enigmas of the place were Spanish tiles laying scattered on the ground and as Bingham said in his book Inca Land 'published in 1922. He said ....very puzzling were half a dozen Spanish roofing tiles..'. At that time there was no simple answer for them being left in this remote Inca place and Bingham took little notice of the anomaly. He considered his first choice of Machu Picchu to be the fabled city of Vilcabamba and its rise as the Lost City was furthered by one of his books The Lost City of the Incas first published in 1948. But not everyone was convinced

In 1964 another American, Gene Savoy cleared the forest from Espíritu Pampa ruins and declared he had found the true Lost City. The story immediately attracted Tony Morrison and his colleague Mark Howell to make a film for BBC Television.They reached Espíritu Pampa in September 1964. Later their observations of a band of ash in one unexpected excavation together with evidence from 16th century Spanish chronicles led British historian John Hemming to conclude that Espíritu Pampa must be the true Lost City and retreat of the last Incas. qv the final page of Hemming's classic work The Conquest of the Incas.

These original pictures were taken in 1964 soon after the re-discovery.

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