Anne James visits a new exhibition at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, running until December 30

This new exhibition comprises photographs that record both the ruins of the ancient Inca royal city itself, precariously perched as it is on the peak that is Machu Picchu, and a selection of people who visited it during the 20th century. And there were many -- still are. This year a staggering 500,000 people will visit this historic and remote Peruvian site.

The earliest photographs are those of Hiram Bingham, an American and the first 20th-century photographer and explorer to visit. Then Martin Chambi picks up the story. A resident of Cuzco, the local main town, he visits and revisits, photographs and re-photographs, throughout the rest of the century. Finally there is Charles Chadwick-Healey who records the site and its visitors at the century's end.

The exhibition describes the majestic grandeur of this impossible royal site; its enduring qualities; and the impact it has on its visitors. Higham's pictures include a charming set of nine small portraits, taken in 1912, of the Indian men who worked for him clearing the site. There are two of Chambi's photographs from 1934, in which rich local girl Ricardo Luna and her picnic party pose for the camera, accompanied (on foot and hoof) by their simple barbeque of chicken and pork and the essential phonograph!

Charles Chadwick-Healey, by contrast, shows us modern backpackers in more relaxed modes -- some recumbent on loungers, others covered in colourful pac-a-macs in order to protect themselves from the rain and damp that often envelops Mach Picchu.

The exhibition includes copies of Hiram Bingham's original photographs for the National Geographic magazine in 1911 and 1912 -- images that caused an immediate international stir. The photographs from 1911 include a panorama of the site hidden and overgrown by brambles and creepers, while those of 1912 show the terrain as it can be seen today, cleared of its skeleton of walls and turrets with its passageways laid bare.

The exhibition continues at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History until December 30.