Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Allumination
• VHS Release Date: November 30, 1999
• Run Time: 52 minutes
• ASIN: 1575236982
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #343,862 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Can discovering the lost city of the Incas win you a seat in the U.S. Senate? It did for Hiram Bingham III. Bingham was born into a missionary family in Hawaii, married the heiress to the Tiffany fortune, and in 1911 set off to make a name for himself, hoping to find the lost city of the Incas. Archival photographs, dramatic reenactments, and stunning contemporary film footage trace Bingham's quest from the library in Cuzco, Peru, through the valley of the Urubamba to the overgrown cities of Vitcos, Machu Picchu, and Espíritu Pampa.

National Geographic sent Bingham back to Peru in 1912 to take pictures for an entire issue devoted to the Incas, whose breathtaking stonework shrines were once covered in gold, whose kings had worn cloaks of bat skin, who called silver "the tears of the moon," and gold "the sweat of the sun." Machu Picchu tells you these and other fascinating facts about the Inca and their escape route through sacred valleys and mountaintop cities as they fled the Spanish conquistadors in the early 1500s, as well as relating the story of Bingham's passion for exploration and how he parlayed his exploration fame into a political career. For anyone who dreams of the thrill of exploration, is curious about the Incan Empire, or is interested in stunning images of southeastern Peru, Machu Picchu is a great introduction to early 20th-century Incan exploration. --Tara Chace

From the back cover

MACHU PICCHU: Secrets of the Incan Empire. Seeking fame and fortune, Hiram Bingham treks into the mountainous central regions of Peru in search of the Lost City of the Incas. When he emerges, he is an exploration superstar; the recipient of such adulation, he is able to parlay it into a career in the U.S. Senate. Following a trail of rumor and legend, he wanders far into the sacred valleys, where he discovers a series of mountain-top sanctuaries used by the Incas to hide from the Spanish Conquerors. Machu Picchu chronicles the arduous, near-mystical journey of a man consumed by ambition and reveals the astonishing remains of a vanished culture, hidden beneath the encroaching jungle and beyond the mists of time.