The ancient city of Machu Picchu has been given the wrong name for over 100 years

Machu Picchu is one of the world's most famous archaeological sites, a marvel of pre-Columbian architecture and a tourist attraction that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

This ancient city is known all over the world, however, according to a new scientific article, it is known by the wrong name. About it reported Peruvian historian and leading US archaeologist who claim that the UNESCO World Heritage Site was known to its inhabitants as Huayna Picchu. This name is in honor of the nearest rocky peak, and Machu Picchu is only the name of the highest mountain near the city.

In his article, published in Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archeology, Donato Amado González of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, and Brian S. Bauer of the University of Illinois at Chicago say they have studied place names on 19th-century maps, information in documents of the 17th century and the original field notes of the American explorer Hiram Bingham, who found the city in 1911. This place does not appear in any of the sources as Machu Picchu.

But the ruins of an Inca city called Huayna Picchu are mentioned in a 1904 atlas published seven years before Bingham's arrival in Peru. Moreover, it turned out that in 1911 Bingham was told about the ruins called Huayna Picchu along the Urubamba River before he went in search of them.

According to Bauer, the clearest links to the original name of the Inca city are in reports, written by the Spanish conquerors shortly after they captured Cusco (a city near Machu Picchu) in end of the 16th century.

While the study is likely to spark new debate, few historians believe it will entail a name change for the city. An erroneous toponym will probably remain on the conscience of scientists.