Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Peru is a marvellous natural setting in which the handiwork of man has taken strange and beautiful forms from the magnificent megalithic architecture of Inca Cuzco in the high Andes to the coastal graves in which were found – still remarkably well pre- served some of the most beautiful textiles and pottery ever created. More than most other great centres of civilization ancient Peru is known to us only from its material remains. Even the last and most spectacular of the Peruvian civilizations the Inca (who in the fifteenth century covered the country with the magnificent road network from which this book takes its title) were without a system of writing; and despite their prodigious technological and artistic skill Peruvian cultures such as the Mochica (third to sixth centuries AD) and the Chim? (which in the immediate pre-Inca period held sway over half of Peru with the city of Chan-Chan as its centre) have left behind them no word of their language. The story of Peru is known to us through the eye of the archaeolo- gist; and this book presents the cultures of Peru as the archaeolo- gist sees them. The author presents the fruits of the four major archacological expeditions (in 1931-2 1937-9 1952-4 and 1963-4) which have earned him his reputation as an expert on a phenomenal variety of aspects of Peruvian antiquity. Among the sites excavated were in the northern coastal plains the sixth- century pyramids and terraces of Pacatnam? the desert cities of Tecapa and Jatanca and the much earlier (first to second century) ruins of Quisque Sechin and Cerro Blanco. In the southern Andes the Inca buildings of Cuzco and sites such as the sacred cliffs and sanctuaries of Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu are discussed and illustrated with the author’s own photographs. His commentary on the pictorial record is both a magnificent survey of the complex and fascinating past of Peru and an absorbing demonstration of how the archacologist proceeds while excavating a site learning from what he finds. (LL)