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The Inca empire lasted three centuries, at its peak stretched from Quito along thousands of miles of paved roads south to the Andes of present-day Chile and Argentina. Then, from out of the north in 1533, came the Spaniards. They killed the ruling Inca, Atahualpa, put in his place Manco II, an able young prince whom they thought they could trust to supervise the empire. Manco rebelled, led several attacks on the Spaniards, finally fled to a hidden mountain fortress that had come to be known as Vilcapampa, but which Bingham insisted was the traditional refuge of the Quechua kings—Machu Picchu.
End of the Line. With Manco went all the trappings of Inca royalty: the Virgins of the Sun, high priests, the harem of Chosen Women, even the royal embalmers. Each had their place in Machu Picchu, and each left their mark: the sundial, the palaces, the preponderance of fine-boned women in the burial caves. Manco died in 1545, and his throne quickly passed from one son to another and finally to a third, Tupac Amaru, whom the Spaniards tracked down in the Amazon jungles and killed in 1572. His death ended the rule of what may have been an unbroken line of Indian kings that started in the mists of prehistory, lasted through 62 generations of Amautas, four centuries of Quechua and nearly four more of Inca. To each civilization, Machu Picchu was the last, impregnable retreat. There is no record that any invader ever reached it—or even found it. Until Hiram Bingham came along, it lived only in the fading legends of a vanquished nation.