We’ve been calling Machu Picchu the wrong name after 100-year mistake revealed

Machu Picchu has gone by the wrong name for more than 100 years, a new study suggests.

The ancient citadel of Machu Picchu is one of the most visited archaeological sites in the world, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists a year.

But according to a new academic paper, the Inca citadel, situated high in the Peruvian Andes, has been referred to by the wrong name for over a century.

The research asserts that the site was known by its Inca inhabitants as Picchu, or Huayna Picchu – the rocky summit that lies nearest to the site.

Huayna is located slightly further north and is not to be confused with Machu Picchu, the name of the highest mountain to the south of the ancient site.

Authored by historian Donato Amado Gonzales from the Ministry of Culture of Peru and archaeologist Brian Bauer from the University of Illinois Chicago, the study was published in Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology.

Gonzales and Bauer say they combed through many old documents for their research, including 19th-century maps, 17th-century official papers, and American explorer Hiram Bingham’s field notes.

Bingham, who was a famed academic and politician, is believed to have “rediscovered” the Inca citadel in 1911 – though many academics have suggested that the city wasn’t ever really lost, according to The Guardian.

“We began with the uncertainty of the name of the ruins when Bingham first visited them and then reviewed several maps and atlases printed before Bingham’s visit to the ruins,” said Professor Bauer.

“There is significant data which suggest that the Inca city actually was called Picchu or more likely, Huayna Picchu,” he added.

The researchers found a 1904 atlas published seven years before Bingham arrived in Peru that identified the ruins of an Inca town as Huayna Picchu.

Furthermore, the study’s authors say that Bingham was aware of ruins called Huayna Picchu before he left Cusco to search for the site in 1911.

Perhaps most notably, the name of the Inca city can be observed within accounts written by Spanish conquerors from the late 16th century, Bauer said.

“We end with a stunning, late 16th-century account when the Indigenous people of the region were considering returning to reoccupy the site, which they called Huayna Picchu,” he said.

Today, the mountain we know as Huayna Picchu towers above the Machu Picchu site and offers thousands of tourists sprawling views of the ruins.

It is unclear at this time if the study will spark an official name change for the site, though some historians believe it’s unnecessary.

“All names are invented and changeable and it doesn’t make much difference,” Natalia Sobrevilla, professor of Latin American history at the University of Kent told The Guardian.

“Except now, Machu Picchu is an established brand very linked to Peruvian identity, so what would be the point of changing it?”