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"The best all around guide for those who've been or who are going to Machu Picchu . . . . Absolutely indispensable!"--Don Montague, president, South American Explorers. This revised edition includes newly discovered sites and full-color illustrations of real-life scenes from "National Geographic."
Presents a detailed study of Machu Picchu's construction. Tells as much about the practical challenges of building a city as it does about the mysterious Inca.
Details the status of contemporary research on Incan civilization, and addresses mysteries of the founding and abandonment of Machu Picchu, charting its archaeological history from 1911 to the present.
By examining the stunning stone buildings and dynamic spaces of the royal estate of Chinchero, Nair brings to light the rich complexity of Inca architecture. This investigation ranges from the paradigms of Inca scholarship and a summary of Inca cultural practices to the key events of Topa Inca's reign and the many individual elements of Chinchero's extraordinary built environment. What emerges are the subtle, often sophisticated ways in which the Inca manipulated space and architecture in order to impose their authority, identity, and agenda. The remains of grand buildings, as well as a series of deft architectural gestures in the landscape, reveal the unique places that were created within ...
Ken Wright and his coauthors report the results of their exhaustive investigation into the surveying work underlying the unusual Inca site of Moray, as well as the engineered systems for collecting and delivering water.
Massive yet elegantly executed masonry architecture and andenes (agricultural terraces) set against majestic and seemingly boundless Andean landscapes, roads built in defiance of rugged terrains, and fine textiles with orderly geometric designs—all were created within the largest political system in the ancient New World, a system headed, paradoxically, by a single, small minority group without wheeled vehicles, markets, or a writing system, the Inka. For some 130 years (ca. A.D. 1400 to 1533), the Inka ruled over at least eighty-six ethnic groups in an empire that encompassed about 2 million square kilometers, from the northernmost region of the Ecuador–Colombia border to northwest Arge...
The Oxford Handbook of the Incas aims to be the first comprehensive book on the Inca, the largest empire in the pre-Columbian world. Using archaeology, ethnohistory and art history, the central goal of this handbook is to bring together recent research conducted by experts from different fields that study the Inca empire, from its origins and expansion to its demise and continuing influence in contemporary times.
A major contribution to both art history and Latin American studies, A Culture of Stone offers sophisticated new insights into Inka culture and the interpretation of non-Western art. Carolyn Dean focuses on rock outcrops masterfully integrated into Inka architecture, exquisitely worked masonry, and freestanding sacred rocks, explaining how certain stones took on lives of their own and played a vital role in the unfolding of Inka history. Examining the multiple uses of stone, she argues that the Inka understood building in stone as a way of ordering the chaos of unordered nature, converting untamed spaces into domesticated places, and laying claim to new territories. Dean contends that unders...
The Incas is a captivating exploration of one of the greatest civilizations ever seen. Seamlessly drawing on history, archaeology, and ethnography, this thoroughly updated new edition integrates advances made in hundreds of new studies conducted over the last decade. • Written by one of the world’s leading experts on Inca civilization • Covers Inca history, politics, economy, ideology, society, and military organization • Explores advances in research that include pre-imperial Inca society; the royal capital of Cuzco; the sacred landscape; royal estates; Machu Picchu; provincial relations; the khipu information-recording technology; languages, time frames, gender relations, effects on human biology, and daily life • Explicitly examines how the Inca world view and philosophy affected the character of the empire • Illustrated with over 90 maps, figures, and photographs
Water is an endangered resource, imperiled by population growth, mega-urbanization, and climate change. Scientists project that by 2050, freshwater shortages will affect 75 percent of the global population. Steven Mithen puts our current crisis in historical context by exploring 10,000 years of humankind’s management of water. Thirst offers cautionary tales of civilizations defeated by the challenges of water control, as well as inspirational stories about how technological ingenuity has sustained communities in hostile environments. As in his acclaimed, genre-defying After the Ice and The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen blends archaeology, current science, and ancient literature to give us a...