“Spider God” Temple Found in Peru
National Geographic News
October 29, 2008
A 3,000-year-old temple featuring an image of a spider god may hold clues to little-known cultures in ancient Peru.
People of the Cupisnique culture, which thrived from roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C., built the temple in the Lambayeque valley on Peru’s north coast.
The ruins of Peru’s Machu Picchu in 1913 (photo by Hiram Bingham)
Debate Rages in Peru: Was a Lost City Ever Lost?
December 8, 2008
NYT
CUSCO, Peru — From the postcards bearing his swashbuckling, fedora-topped image to the luxury train emblazoned with his name that runs to the foot of the mountain redoubt of Machu Picchu, reminders are ubiquitous here of Hiram Bingham, the Yale explorer long credited with revealing the so-called Lost City of the Incas to the outside world almost a century ago.
But in recent months, a confluence of contrary events has threatened to upend the legacy of Mr. Bingham, the ostensible model for the fictional Indiana Jones…
The Frozen Mummy of an Inca Girl Found On Top Of A Mountain In Argentina In 1999
(Note: Readers of this blog will recall that a German adventurer, Augusto R. Berns, claimed to have discovered a cave full of Inca mummies on a piece of property he… (more…)
Andean Mummy Hairs Show Hallucinogen Use
Discovery News
Oct. 29, 2008 — Andean mummy hair has provided the first direct archaeological evidence of the consumption of hallucinogens in pre-Hispanic Andean populations, according to recent gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis…
An Artist’s Reconstruction of the Pyramid Complex at Cahuachi, Peru
Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite
New remote-sensing technology reveals huge structure beneath surface
Discovery Channel
Mon., Oct. 6, 2008
A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru’s Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome…
Oh mummy! Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Tribe Members Sacrificed 1,300 Years Ago
The Daily Mail
August 27, 2008
Archaeologists working at an ancient Peruvian burial site have unearthed the first intact ruins belonging to a tribe which existed centuries before the mighty Incas…
(Above: Francisco Pizarro seizes the Inca Emperor Atahualpa in 1533. Although the emperor turned over a large ransom in gold and silver in exchange for being set free, Pizarro murdered him anyway).
Machu Picchu: Known and Unknown, There and Not There
(Originally published in Spanish in Peru in La Republica, Aug 31, 2008. The Spanish version is included here, directly after the English version)
By Daniel Buck
Mention the phrase “Lost City of the Incas” or “Inca treasure” and normally skeptical journalists drop their guard and credulously report the most unfounded speculations…
An Interview with Paolo Greer (Part 3)
(To read Part 2, click here)
19) In what year did you find Augusto Berns’ “promotional materials” in Peru’s National Library?
PG: You are referring to the collection of Berns’ papers I mentioned in my article for the South American Explorer… (more…)
AN INTERVIEW WITH PAOLO GREER (PART 2)
(To read Part 1, click here)
7) You recently published an article in the “South American Explorer” called “Machu Picchu before Bingham.” In the article you make a number of claims, among them that a German, Augusto R. Berns, purchased an estate called the “Cercado de San Antonio,” or “Torontoy,” in 1867 and that… (more…)
(Above: Scientists examine a 15-year-old girl who lived in the Inca Empire, then was sacrificed and remained frozen for 500 years)
Incas fattened up their children before sacrifice on the volcano
The Times
October 2, 2007
Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano…