For more than 100 years, one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites, Machu Picchu, has been known by a misnomer, according to a report published in Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies.
The report says that the Incas who built the ancient city probably called it Huayna Picchu.
Huayna translates to “new or young” and Picchu means “mountain peak” in the Quechua language, says Emily Dean, professor of anthropology at the University of Southern Utah in Cedar City. She did not participate in the report. Machu means “old,” which is why we called it the old mountaintop, she added.
The Inca settlement was thought to have been built around 1420 as an estate for Inca royals living in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, according to report author Brian Bauer, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
When the Spanish later conquered the Incas, Huayna Picchu was abandoned, the report said. It was hidden deep in the Andes for centuries until American explorer Hiram Bingham rediscovered it in 1911.