The Guard Post of Machu Picchu

In the Quechua language, machu means "old" or "old person", while pikchu means either "portion of coca being crunched" or "pyramid; pointed, multi-sided solid; cone". Thus the name of the site is sometimes interpreted as "old mountain". The site is on a narrow saddle between two mountain peaks: Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu.

In the Quechua language, the abandoned Inca site was called "Huayna Picchu", after the smaller peak at the site, or perhaps, just "Picchu". Huayna means "young" in the Quechua language. The research documents that, starting in 1911, with the publications of American historian and explorer Hiram Bingham, the name Machu Picchu became associated with the ruins. Evidence of references by native Quechua speakers dating to their reports to the Spanish, early maps, and even discussions with Bingham, is cited in the new research into historical records regarding an apparently arbitrary selection of the name Bingham associated with the site—that differed from the traditional name. The name given to the abandoned settlement by its builders has not been determined by researchers.