Augusto Berns found Machu Picchu before Hiram Bingham

AFP: German adventurer found Machu Picchu decades before American: June 5 2008. August Berns, a German businessman, arranged with President Balta of Peru in 1867 to set up a lumber mill at the foot of the mountain on which Machu Picchu is located. Berns also traded in gold.

'We found that Berns and his colleagues extracted gold from archaeological remains at Machu Picchu using a company that had won a mining concession for extracting wood and gold, in the area where the citadel is located,' Peruvian historian Carlos Carcelen told reporters. Carcelen did his research with American cartographer Paolo Greer, French archaeologist Alain Gioda and British historian Alex Chepstow-Lusty. They researched archives in Peru and Spain questioning the idea Bingham 'discovered' Machu Picchu in 1911. 'Sadly, we demonstrated that there was a major looting of gold objects which later were sold to European museums and universities,' Carcelen added."