Machu Picchu Week
Among the most famous ruins in the world, the mountain-top site known today as Machu Picchu is what remains of an Incan city constructed in the fifteenth century at 8000 feet above sea level, in modern-day Peru. Its remoteness, grandeur, and mystery (owing to a lack of any written records as to its purpose) have captivated archeologists and the public alike since its rediscovery. Can you identify these seven figures who are all associated with the Lost City of the Incas?
Charlton Heston
publication date: Saturday, April 6, 2024
category: 
Movies
clue: By starring in the first major Hollywood studio film made at a Peruvian archeological site, this actor inspired Indiana Jones.
explanation: Heston's Secret of the Incas is considered a direct inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark. more…
intended difficulty: easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, Samir Mehta, and Richard Slominsky
Colin Murphy
publication date: Friday, April 5, 2024
category: 
Victims
clue: This British banker was thought to have drowned while hiking to Machu Picchu on vacation, until the cause of death was determined to be a series of head injuries that led to a murder investigation that remains unsolved.
intended difficulty: easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, Samir Mehta, and Richard Slominsky
Fabrizio Moretti
publication date: Thursday, April 4, 2024
category: 
Music
clue: This drummer and visual artist is the only South American member of the band that scored an early-2010s streaming hit with a song about a desire to go mountaineering.
explanation: Moretti is the drummer of the Strokes, whose 2011 song "Machu Picchu" was a hit on streaming despite not charting on radio. Its chorus makes a metaphorical reference to "trying to find a mountain I can climb." more…
intended difficulty: hard
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, and Samir Mehta
Martín Chambi
publication date: Wednesday, April 3, 2024
category: 
Art
clue: This Indigenous photographer from Cusco made a name for himself by photographing both portraits of the living and the ruins of the dead.
intended difficulty: medium
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, and Samir Mehta
Hiram Bingham III
publication date: Tuesday, April 2, 2024
category: 
Exploration
clue: The single day that he spent as the governor of Connecticut was about the same amount of time that he gave anyone else credit for "discovering" Machu Picchu before him.
explanation: Bingham was an explorer who initially gave credit to Agustín Lizárraga, one of several people who reached the ruins of Machu Picchu before him, but he traded on the fame of "discovering" the ruins by himself and began claiming to have been the first. In 1925, he was elected both governor and senator in Connecticut, and chose the latter job after doing the former for a single day. more…
intended difficulty: easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, and Samir Mehta
Che Guevara
publication date: Monday, April 1, 2024
category: 
Military
clue: Long before this Marxist revolutionary appeared on the shirts and dorm walls of college students, he kept "motorcycle diaries" of his travels as a young man, including his pivotal trip to a mountaintop ruin that opened his eyes to the exploitation of the locals around it.
intended difficulty: very easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, LaVonne Lemler, and Samir Mehta
Pachacuti
publication date: Sunday, March 31, 2024
category: 
Royalty
clue: Turning a village into an empire that conquered much of a continent was all in a day's work for this sun worshiper, but he's best remembered today for the ruins of his estate on top of a mountain.
explanation: Pachacuti transformed the tiny Kingdom of Cusco into the Inca Empire. Machu Picchu is widely believed to be the remains of his personal estate. more…
intended difficulty: easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm and Steve West
