The Lost City of the Incas — Test 6, Passage 2
IELTS_ACADEMIC · Ielts Reading Passage · Cambridge IELTS 12 Academic, Cambridge University Press
Read the passage and answer all the questions that follow.
IELTS_READING_MATCHING_HEADINGS
Different accounts of the same journey
Bingham gains support
ii
A common belief
iii
The aim of the trip
iv
A dramatic description
A new route
vi
Bingham publishes his theory
vii
Bingham's lack of enthusiasm
viii
Paragraph A
Paragraph B
Paragraph C
Paragraph D
Paragraph E
Paragraph F
Paragraph G
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A–G. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i–viii, in boxes 14–20 on your answer sheet.
IELTS_READING_TRUE_FALSE_NOT_GIVEN
TRUE
Bingham went to South America in search of an Inca city.
FALSE
Bingham chose a particular route down the Urubamba valley because it was the most common route used by travellers.
FALSE
Bingham understood the significance of Machu Picchu as soon as he saw it.
NOT GIVEN
Bingham returned to Machu Picchu in order to find evidence to support his theory.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? Write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information, FALSE if the statement contradicts the information, or NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this.
IELTS_READING_SENTENCE_COMPLETION
The track that took Bingham down the Urubamba valley had been created for the transportation of
in the Urubamba valley.
Bingham found out about the ruins of Machu Picchu from a
ONE WORD ONLY
Complete the sentences below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
When the US explorer and academic Hiram Bingham arrived in South America in 1911, he was looking for the last capital of the Inca civilisation, a city that the Spanish invaders called Vilcabamba. He did not find Vilcabamba, but he did find another Inca city, Machu Picchu, which he brought to the attention of the world. Machu Picchu was not the city that Bingham was searching for, but his descriptions of it were so compelling that he has since become inextricably linked with the site and credited with its 'discovery'.
Bingham's 1911 expedition was not his first to Peru. He had previously visited the country in 1909, and had seen the Inca ruins at Choqquequirau. On that trip, he had been told about other ruins, at a place called Machu Picchu. Local people called it the 'lost city of the Incas' and believed it to be the last refuge of the Incas after the Spanish Conquest. Bingham was interested, but decided not to try to find it. However, when he returned to Peru in 1911, he was determined to find the city that the Spanish called Vilcabamba. With a small team, he followed a route that the local people told him would take him to the ruins.
The team travelled down the Urubamba valley and along the river. The track was extremely dangerous. It had originally been constructed for transporting rubber from the forest, but had long since fallen into disrepair. At one point, the track was no more than a ledge over a sheer drop of 1,000 metres. Bingham and his team had to crawl along it on their hands and knees. After four days' travel, the team arrived at the ruins. They were covered in thick vegetation, and were far larger than anyone had expected. Bingham immediately realised the importance of the site, and wrote in his journal: 'I knew then that I had discovered something that would be of great interest to the world.'
When Bingham returned to the United States, he wrote a book about his expedition, called The Lost City of the Incas. The book was a huge success, and made Bingham famous. In the book, he described the ruins in dramatic detail, comparing them to 'the most beautiful cities of Europe'. He also claimed that Machu Picchu was the city that the Spanish had called Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the Incas. This claim was later proved to be wrong, but at the time it added to the excitement and mystery surrounding the site. The book was illustrated with stunning photographs, which helped to create the image of Machu Picchu as a 'lost' city hidden in the clouds.
We should remember, however, that The Lost City of the Incas is a work of hindsight, not written until 1948, many years after his journey. His journal entries of the time reveal a much more gradual appreciation of his achievement. He spent the afternoon at the ruins noting down the dimensions of some of the buildings, then descended and rejoined his companions, to whom he seems to have said little about his discovery. At this stage, Bingham didn't realise the extent or the importance of the site, nor did he realise what use he could make of the discovery.
However, soon after returning it occurred to him that he could make a name for himself from this discovery. When he came to write the National Geographic magazine article that broke the story to the world in April 1913, he knew he had to produce a big idea. He wondered whether it could have been the birthplace of the very first Inca, Manco the Great, and whether it could also have been what chroniclers described as 'the last city of the Incas'. This term refers to Vilcabamba, the settlement where the Incas had fled from Spanish invaders in the 1530s. Bingham made desperate attempts to prove this belief for nearly 40 years. Sadly, his vision of the site as both the beginning and end of the Inca civilisation, while a magnificent one, is inaccurate. We now know that Vilcabamba actually lies 65 kilometres away in the depths of the jungle.
One question that has perplexed visitors, historians and archaeologists alike ever since Bingham, is why the site seems to have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest. There are no references to it by any of the Spanish chroniclers – and if they had known of its existence so close to Cusco they would certainly have come in search of gold. An idea which has gained wide acceptance over the past few years is that Machu Picchu was a moya, a country estate built by an Inca emperor to escape the cold winters of Cusco, where the elite could enjoy monumental architecture and spectacular views. Furthermore, the particular architecture of Machu Picchu suggests that it was constructed at the time of the greatest of all the Incas, the emperor Pachacuti (c. 1438–71). By custom, Pachacuti's descendants built other similar estates for their own use, and so Machu Picchu would have been abandoned after his death, some 50 years before the Spanish Conquest.
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