An Incredible Story of Achievement and Discovery by a Man who had Not Even Been Looking for What He Found - by SC Skillman

In Warwick we are enjoying the History Festival - and as a lover of history, I've earmarked several events. One of them, a talk by Professor Michael Scott of Warwick University Classics and Ancient History Department, has captivated me.

If there's one thing history teaches us, it's the fact that individual human beings are hardly ever in control of outcomes: the stories of great achievements are often stories begun in diffidence and frailty. (And of course, we see plenty of those kinds of story in the Bible).

Implanted in the human heart and mind is an insatiable appetite for enquiry; and the story of real archaeology is a story of human curiosity, exploration, passion, persistence and obsession. Below I summarise Professor Michel Scott's talk, which is based upon his book  X Marks the Spot.

Book cover image of 'X Marks the Spot' by Michael Scott

He began with this assertion: Indiana Jones and real life Archaeology are polar opposites. 

So, we may wonder, how did real life archaeology influence the creation of the Indiana Jones character?

Throughout the story of archaeology we see era-defining discoveries that puncture through into the public consciousness, and the discovery of Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes is one such story.

Hiram Bingham III, north American professor, was in Peru in 1911 and his sole aim was to climb a mountain and stick the north American flag at the top. In July he crossed a river by a very rough, flimsy log bridge, crawled up a steep mountain slope on all fours, and was shown a few ruins higher up the mountain by one of the locals (who’d known about them for a while but not thought much more about them). Hiram spent two hours there, made a rough map of the site, and left.

In January 2012 he started to give lectures about the find, and on the basis of his lectures, he got funding to return to the site with an entirely new 40-strong team.

The team spent a few months examining the site while Hiram himself went off elsewhere to do some climbing and camping. When he returned the team had achieved amazing things They had created a much better, stronger bridge across the river, and a zig zag path up the mountain, and cleared a lot of the site.

Hiram had taken the sponsorship of Kodak which was very fortunate as many photographs emerged from these few months. He also brought back with him 100 cases of objects excavated from the site. In April 1913 he announced his discoveries to the world in National Geographic, and this captivated the public imagination.

It is an astonishing tale of achievement by a man who had initially not even been looking for what he found and had been quite diffident on his first two hour visit.

At the end of 1913 and into 1914 he was back there again, but this time he had to have a Peruvian official with him, as the Peruvian government were starting to become suspicious, and feeling that Bingham had stolen part of their past. By the end of that trip Hiram had caused such offence he was thrown out of Peru.

 He subsequently published books about Machu Picchu which were bestsellers. He decided it was a ‘lost city’ of spiritual significance which academics thought ‘bizarre speculation’ but which the public loved; and the image of the ‘lost city’ has stuck to Machu Picchu ever since However, it is now thought to have been a summer palace, used by no more than 700 people during the life of one Inca king, and when he died, it was abandoned.

Hiram went on to become a World War I flying ace and later a successful politician.

During the 1920s Peru was not very interested in focusing on its indigenous past, as the government wanted to focus on the city of Lima and the future. But by 1936 this has dramatically changed. Now north America had developed ‘The Good Neighbour’ policy, tourism became key to American policy, and Machu Picchu was on the front cover of Peruvian tourist magazines. This was because of a massive publicity campaign driven by those local to the region of Machu Picchu, comparing the site to Ancient Rome.

After World War II there was an attempt to reinstate ‘The Good Neighbour’ policy, and in the late 1940’s Hiram found himself as the Poster Boy of the Machu Picchu tourism campaign. Peru welcomed him back with open arms and unveiled the new road they’d built to the site, calling it the Hiram Bingham III Highway. Hiram was there cutting the ribbon at the opening, as the Scientific Discoverer of Machu Picchu.

His last book, ‘Lost City of the Incas’ was published in 1948 and became a bestseller.

The film ‘Secret of the Incas’ came out five years later starring Charlton Heston. This film inspired the creators of the Indiana Jones films, the first of which came out in 1981.

At the 2011 Centenary of Bingham’s first visit to the site, the Peruvian President ran a massive and successful campaign for the return to Peru of all the objects found there.

What intrigues me about the story of Hiram Bingham is the fact that his 'discovery' of the site was something he never looked for, he was in the place for a completely different reason, wasn't particularly interested in these ruins on the mountainside, and was only led to them by an accidental meeting and a few casual remarks by a local.

So what message may we draw from this for a writer? Only that we might do well to stop 'striving' and focusing on a 'successful outcome', and just enjoy the journey! Life is unaccountable, we cannot control what happens, but we can follow our own creative impulse with passion, persistence and even obsession - but the spirit of exploration has been 'written on the human heart' and we must follow where that leads without needing to worry about the outcome.

   

Sheila lives in Warwickshire, and writes psychological, paranormal and mystery fiction and non-fiction under the pen-name SC Skillman. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Association of Christian Writers.

Her non-fiction books on local history are published by Amberley and include 'Paranormal Warwickshire' and 'Illustrated Tales of Warwickshire'; her next book, 'A-Z of Warwick', will be released in November 2023. She has just been commissioned to write 'Paranormal Gloucestershire', which she is now researching, and she also has two modern gothic novels in progress.

Sheila was born and brought up in Orpington, Kent, and has loved writing most of her life. She studied English Literature at Lancaster University, and her first permanent job was as a production secretary with the BBC. Later she lived for nearly five years in Australia before returning to the UK. She has now settled in Warwick with her husband and son, and her daughter currently lives and works in Australia.