AllMovie

By any standard, Peru's Machu Picchu checks in as one of the most endlessly intriguing man-made structures in the Western Hemisphere. Though it remains a symbol of the ingenuity that characterized Incan engineering, with advanced aqueduct systems and emerald green terraces, it was completely abandoned in the Middle Ages. Various unanswered questions linger, including the Incans' reason for building it in such an odd location (on the steep face of a mountain), the nature of the population that inhabited it, and of course the reasons for the abandonment itself. In this special from the PBS series Nova, a group of archaeologists journey to Machu and investigate areas of the structure that haven't been touched since the Incas built it. They also embark on a "trail of clues" that initially surfaced in 1911, with explorer Hiram Bingham's discovery of the site itself.