Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Peru through time
2. Living landscapes: mountains, coast, forest
3. Early Cultures and Chavin
4. Life and death in the desert: Paracas and Nasca
5. Unwritten histories: Moche and Chimú
6. Empires in the sky: Wari and Inca
7. The Andean legacy: enduring traditions
Notes Select bibliography List of contributors Acknowledgements and credits
Index

Promotional Information

Marking the bicentennial anniversary of Peruvian independence, this book explores the pre-Columbian history and culture of the country through an extraordinary collection of objects.

About the Author

Cecilia Pardo is Curator of the exhibition Peru: a journey through time and was previously Deputy Director and Curator of Collections and Pre-Columbian Art at the Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru. Previous publications include Nasca (Museo de Arte de Lima).

Jago Cooper is Head of the Americas Section at the British Museum. Previous publications include Arctic: culture and climate (The British Museum Press).

With contributions by Nilda Callañaupa, Rafael Vega Centeno, Peter Fux, Andrew Hamilton, Ricardo Kusunoki, George Lau, Elena Phipps, Gabriel Prieto, Julio Rucabado and Bill Sillar.

Reviews

"This volume documents an exhibition at the British Museum. Organized in conjunction with the Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru, the exhibition featured works mostly from the British Museum's collection. Written by major scholars in Andean studies, the essays in the catalogue's seven sections survey the development of high civilization in the central Andes over the four millennia prior to the arrival of the Spaniards. Arranged chronologically, the essays detail the key cultures, ethnic and linguistic groups, and states and their artistic, intellectual, and practical achievements, the legacies of which inform Indigenous life to this day. Ceramic, metal, shell, stone, textile, and wood objects--here beautifully illustrated--and the engineering of agricultural terraces, irrigation systems, and road networks attest to Andean skill and sophistication. Throughout, the authors are sensitive to ways that culture shapes responses to other ways of being: it identifies and disarms contemporary prejudices and highlights distinctively Andean perspectives. Pardo (deputy director and curator of collections and pre-Columbian art, Museo de Arte de Lima) and Cooper (art and archaeology, Univ. of East Anglia, UK) deftly balance the material and the cultural, offering readers an excellent, well-written introduction to Andean peoples and traditions, past and present.

Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.--E. Douglas, University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill "CHOICE, October 2022 Vol. 60 No. 2"