Recent findings
In 2001, the Italian archaeologist Mario Polia discovered the report of the missionary Andres Lopez in the archives of the Jesuits in Rome. [1] In the document, which dates from about 1600, Lopez describes a large city rich in gold, silver, and jewels, located in the middle of the tropical jungle called Paititi by the natives. Lopez informed the Pope about his discovery. [2] Lopez's report and its discovery were widely publicized, though its content is third-hand and far from reliable, Lopez himself having never reached Paititi but only having heard about it from the natives. It focuses on the story of a miracle performed at the court of the king of Paititi by a crucifix taken there by a group of baptized Indians. Many other historical sources of the Colonial period (16th to 18th centuries) refer to Paititi, to its possible locations and to expeditions searching for it. Some of the most informative of these documents include those of Juan Álvarez Maldonado [ es ] (1570), Gregorio Bolívar (1621), Juan Recio de León (1623–27), Juan de Ojeda (1676), Diego de Eguiluz (1696).
In 2001, two researchers from the University of Helsinki, Dr. Ari Siiriäinen (archaeologist) and Dr. Martti Pärssinen (historian), put forward a hypothesis relating the Paititi legend to the Inca expeditions into the Amazonian jungle and to the possible Inca military presence in the region of the Beni and the Madre de Dios rivers. [3] In order to test this hypothesis, a joint Finnish-Bolivian archaeological expedition in 2001–2003 investigated the fortified site Las Piedras near the town of Riberalta in Eastern Bolivia. Some fragments of imperial Inca ceramics were found during the excavations, but the presumed Inca origin of the site remains questionable. [4]
Historian and anthropologist Vera Tyuleneva has contributed to the idea of the non-Peruvian origin of the name "Paititi" and its original locale; she has made expeditions to northern Bolivia and provided extensive and detailed written reports on her findings. [5] [6] [7]
On 29 December 2007, members of a local community near Kimbiri, Peru, found large stone structures resembling high walls, covering an area of 40,000 square meters; they named it the Manco Pata fortress. [8] [9] Researchers from the Peruvian government's Cusco-based National Institute of Culture (INC), however, disputed suggestions by the local mayor that it could be part of the lost city of Paititi. [10] Their report identified the stone structures as naturally formed sandstone. In 2008, the municipality of Kimbiri decided to promote it as a tourist destination. [11]
Recent historical work by the explorer Andrew Nicol examined primary historical texts and concluded that a jungle city or remote Inca outpost, such as the city described by the Paititi legend, could theoretically exist within the Peruvian Amazon Basin. Nicol references the existence of the sites of Vilcabamba, Peru and Mameria as the chief sources of evidence supporting this theory. [12] Parts of this region discussed in Nicols' research are referred to as Antisuyu, one of the four regions into which the Inca empire was divided.
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