Highway of an Empire: The Great Inca Road at AMNHBy STAN PARCHIN
September 28, 2009
Some 35 breathtaking photographs comprise
Highway of an Empire: The Great Inca Road, an exhibition in the IMAX Corridor of New York's
American Museum of Natural History from October 17, 2009 to September 2010. The images are courtesy of the Consulate General of Peru in New York.
The vast Inca Empire's administrative centers, fortresses and religious sites were linked from the capital city of Cuzco by 25,000 miles of roads that date back six centuries. This diverse network of trails, paved highways and woven suspension bridges, traversed by high officials and armies, stretched from Peru's Pacific coast to the Amazon rainforest.
On view are extraordinary images of the round terraces of Moray, the knoll of Sondor (possibly a ritual location) and the Huascarán peak in the Cordillera Blanca. Also included in the presentation are spectacular pictures of Laguna de Los Condores, Andean farmers gathering a potato crop and maps of the Inca roads.
The ChachapoyaIn 1996, a local Peruvian worker discovered a cache of some 200 mummy bundles hidden high above a lake in the cliffs of Laguna de Los Cordores. The remains of the little-known Chachapoya or "cloud people" were those of an Andeans whose warrior nation was conquered by the Incas and uneasily incorporated into their empire in the early 16th Century.