Review by Choice Review
As a major exhibition catalog reflecting Yale University's impressive Bingham Collection, Machu Picchu overviews one of the world's most renowned archeological sites. Since its discovery in 1911, Machu Picchu has become a popular symbol of exotic mystery and a major tourist attraction. This exhibition makes a major contribution to the status of contemporary research on Incan civilization, and convincingly addresses mysteries of the founding and abandonment of Machu Picchu, charting its archaeological history from 1911 to the present. Editors Burger (anthropology, Yale) and Salazar (Peabody Museum, Yale) edited the catalog and curated the exhibition. The catalog's substantial essays discuss Hiram Bingham's 1913 essay on the discovery of the site; Salazar provides an excellent essay on the mysteries of the site, followed by an informational essay on the nature of Inca Royal Estates by Susan Niles. Subsequent informative, well written, and authoritative essays detail recent archaeological investigations at Machu Picchu, scientific insights into daily life there, and observations on the significance of the site for modern Peru. The book's crowning glory is the catalogue of works in the exhibition, offering an impressive survey of the nearly 200 artifacts exhibited. Nearly 300 high-quality photographs, some 200 in full color. A landmark survey. ^BSumming Up: Essential. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. J. A. Day University of South Dakota
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Yale anthropology professor Burger and Salazar, curator of the Machu Picchu collection at Yale's Peabody Museum, present not only an outstanding catalog, but also a welcome, in-depth resource for anyone interested in pre-Columbian archaeology and the anthropology of sacred sites. The fifteenth-century Inca palace complex in the Peruvian Andes is one of the world's most splendid and culturally important archaeological sites, explored by archaeologist Hiram Bingham III, whose accounts, photographs, and illustrations detail the significance of his 1911 discovery of wonders long shrouded in dense vegetation. Still shrouded in mystery are explanations of the site's construction and abandonment. This amply illustrated volume includes essays reflecting a broad understanding of the Bingham collection that has emerged only in the last 20 years, including Susan Niles' overview of Inca royal estates (Machu Picchu is considered a palatial country estate) and Burger's piece on everyday lives in this center of elite activity and ritual. --Whitney Scott Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Tied to a Yale-sponsored exhibition of Incan artifacts now traveling to several museums in America, this illustrated volume sheds new light on Machu Picchu, the mysterious Peruvian ruins that were rediscovered by the Yale Expedition of 1911. No "lost city" of myth, Machu Picchu was actually a "kind of Inca 'Camp David'"-a royal country estate that was probably occupied by an Incan king briefly during the 15th century. In addition to reprinting Hiram Bingham's original 1913 account of the Expedition's journey, Burger and Salazar's volume presents several chapters in which modern archeologists describe the astounding scientific advances, the religious rituals and the daily life of Incas at Machu Picchu. (The book also includes a catalogue of the artifacts shown in the traveling exhibition.) Particularly fascinating is Susan Niles's overview of the many practices that Incan royal families used to conserve their status and resources, including the worship of mummified ancestors and the intermarriage of brothers and sisters. A final chapter by Jorge Flores Ochoa discusses modern-day issues in Peru-such as the successful attempt to make Machu Picchu a center for mystic tourism-and argues that President Fujimori's plan to build a cable car to the ruins "was designed to satisfy the interests of business managers" while ignoring the interests of the local population. Although the writing in this volume can be dense with scientific terms, most of it is also quite engrossing, and readers who are interested in Machu Picchu will be enchanted by the book's many lovely photographs. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
