Imagine that all the great discoveries of Ancient Egypt had happened
in the last few years...and you will have some conception of the great
excitement over recent finds in Peru
Peru wears its ancient cultures wrapped around in layers, like one of
the mummified bodies so well preserved by the nitrates of its deserts.
After his acclaimed book on the Incas, The White Rock, Hugh Thomson
unwraps those layers to show how civilisation emerged so early and so
spectacularly in this toughest and most arid of terrains.
Many of the extraordinary cultures of Ancient Peru, from the lines of
Nasca to the temple-cult of Chavín, buried in the mountains, and the
great pyramids of the coast, have only started to give up their secrets
and antiquity in just the last few years.
Hugh Thomson has been at the forefront of some of these discoveries
himself, having made headlines with his work near Machu Picchu. Now he
takes the reader on a journey back from the world of the Incas to the
first dawn of Andean civilisation, to give an immensely personal and
accessible guide to the wonders that have been revealed.
