On Thursday May 4th, two European tourists, one French and one Swiss, were expelled from the archaeological site of Machu Picchu in Peru after one of them was posing naked and the other took his picture. Both were taken into police custody.
“A foreign subject who stripped naked to then take pictures in the archaeological remains of Machu Picchu in Cuzco, was intervened by Police Tourism personnel,” announced the National Police of Peru (PNP) on its Twitter account. According to the authorities, a 26-year-old Swiss citizen was involved in the alleged commission of the crime against freedom, offenses against public decency and obscene exhibition.
The director of Culture of Cuzco, Maritza Rosa Candia, confirmed that the watchmen of the most important tourist spot of the country, realized that there was a naked tourist near the known as House of the Guardian, in the high part of the Inca citadel.
“Today there were two tourists of foreign nationality who were without clothes and that is not allowed in the Archaeological Park of Machu Picchu,” said Candia. “The visitors’ regulations clearly prohibit this type of act. Our personnel immediately acted and notified the police that they had to get dressed and leave the sanctuary.”
He said that in the presence of the police officers the photographs recorded by the visitors were removed, and then they were taken to the police station to continue the proceedings, because they were denounced for acts against modesty and good manners.
Gilles Metroz, 26 years old, with Swiss passport, was the one who posed without clothes, and the Frenchman Lucas Yves Marc Deveque, 23 years old, was the one who took the photographs. Candia also called on visitors to comply with the provisions of the visitor’s regulations and the recommendations provided by the Machu Picchu security personnel.
In recent time there’s been some debate surrounding the name of the historical site. In an article entitled ‘The Ancient Inca Town Named Huayna Picchu’, published in Ñawpa Pacha, the Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies, authors Donato Amado Gonzales, historian at the Ministry of Culture in Peru, and Brian S. Bauer, professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, reveal the true name of the architectural site to be Huayna Picchu.
Built around 1420, the city is believed to have served as an estate for royal Incas living in Cuzco, the capital of the Incan empire, but it was abandoned when the Spanish invaded the area. It was then lost in the Andes mountains only to be found again by American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911.
Bingham was guided through the mountains by a local farmer Melchor Arteaga and sources from that time show that he was not sure what to call the city, but decided to settle on Machu Picchu based on a suggestion by his guide.
Emily Dean, professor of anthropology at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, clarified that in the Indigenous Quechua language, Picchu means “mountain peak”, while Machu means old and Huayna on the other hand means new or young. The fact that Bingham’s guide called the city Machu shows that locals had already known about the site long before the American explorer “discovered” it. Dean says that the mistake is not surprising, since non-Peruvian archaeologists did not fully understand Quechua and did not put much effort into researching the names of places.
To uncover the true name of the city, researchers Gonzales and Bauer first analyzed Bingham’s notes from the time he found the ruins. Page 47 from his field journal, dated 25 June 1911, the day after his first visit to Machu Picchu, shows Bingham asked Melchor Arteaga how to write the name of the site and the answer by Arteaga “Macho Pischo”.
The authors mentioned that despite their discovery of the original name, they “would not suggest that the name be changed since Machu Picchu is known worldwide”. Dean also said that the name of Machu Picchu is already published in thousands of books, articles, advertisements and legal documents and “the Peruvian people and their government have embraced the new name, so while it’s an interesting addition to the history of the site, it won’t change the modern name”.
