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The Books
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FORGOTTEN VILCABAMBA: Final
Stronghold of the INCAS A new addition to the annals of archaeological exploration in the high Andes of Peru by architect/explorer Vincent R. Lee describing lost Vilcabamba, the once-powerful Incas' mysterious redoubt in the jungles of the Upper Amazon. Woven together are the region's bloody history in the aftermath of the Spanish Conquest, the saga of intrepid early efforts to unlock Vilcabamba's secrets three centuries later and the author's long but successful campaign to bring the hidden ruins of the Incas' long-forgotten final stronghold back to life. A modern-day scientific adventure set against a fascinating historical backdrop, "Forgotten Vilcabamba" has 515 pages, including 48 color plates, 60 pages of maps and drawings and a 65 page "Guide to Inca Vilcabamba," an invaluable key to this newly popular trekker's alternative to the badly over-crowded Inca Trail and Machu Picchu. The author has sold hundreds of copies of "Forgotten Vilcabamba"
via the internet to numerous university libraries, archaeologists,
trekkers and armchair adventurers in the U.S., Canada, Europe and
Latin America. |
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A description of these well known but
seldom visited Inca ruins, including plans, drawings and photos of
three previously undocumented nearby sites, one of which doubles the
number of buildings now known to exist there; 37 pages, including
13 color photographs and 17 pages of maps and drawings; soft cover. "We set aside three weeks for the trip, 50 condo kilometers from Cachora to the roadhead at Huancacalle in the Zona de Vilcabamba. It promised to be slow going, involving about 8500 meters of elevation gain and another 8000 of loss. Once underway, the expedition reached Choqek'iraw in two days, right on schedule, and accomplishing the mapping there as planned. the newly discovered ruins turned out to be larger than expected and doubled the number of building s so far uncovered at the site. We dubbed it the Ridge Group. Our fortunes changed the day we left Choqek'iraw and made camp above the stupendous gorge of the Rio Blanco. Unsettled weather moved in, eventually bringing rain and fog. Much worse, Saturnino became strangely ill, went into convulsions and after about 24 hours of suffering, died. No cause was ever determined." |
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An investigation into the tools and methods available
to and used by the Incas to design their architectural works and get
them built without recourse to drawings or written numbers and instructions;
proposes an entirely new theory of the Inca design process; 75 pages,
including 57 pages of diagrams, drawings and photographs; soft cover. "The clear and ever-present order which was the Inca's hallmark is given physical form in their monuments, and we may now have a better understanding of why and how this was achieved. By their reliance on simple, familiar and easily remembered proportional ratios, Inca architects could mentally visualized their designs and transmit the information necessary for their construction to builders with their numerical rather than pictorial instructions. The tools available for the task were uniquely suited to this "design by numbers" approach -- a perfect marriage of means and ends." |
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Three papers which resulted from a season (1990) of
explorations in the southeastern Andes of Bolivia: a detailed reconstruction
of the enormous Great Hall at the Inca regional capital at Inkallajta;
the search for and probable identification of the "lost"
fortress of Cuzco-tuyo, built by Topa Inca only to be destroyed by
Chiriguano forest cannibals in the time of Huayna Capac; and an explorer's
tour of seven seldom visited sites along the old Inca frontier in
southeastern Bolivia; 101 pages, 20 photographs, numerous maps, plans,
diagrams and drawings; soft cover. |
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A collection of 4 papers on topics ranging from Inca
design and construction techniques to the discovery and identification
of a long-lost Spanish mission in the Peruvian cloud forest, plus
one tongue-in-cheek piece of fiction; 98 pages, numerous photographs,
diagrams, maps, plans and drawings; soft cover. "When the Incas built those proud and sumptous buildings, or a fortress, in order to put one large stone on another they worked it first, and before raising it, first put much earth at the foot of, and level with, the first placed stone. And then they put some long, thick posts of pine over the packed earth, and there raised the other stone by force of arms. And it this manner, being above, they fit it well into that below it. And as the building grew, they placed more well packed and trampled earth at the feet of the fitted stones and put other larger beams by which they raised the other stones, which were excessively large. After this was done, they took away the beams and all the earth and then the wall appeared done without any mortar." Gutiérrez de Santa Clara, History de Las Guerras Civiles del Perú |
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Sixpac Manco Publications
P.O.Box 174 Cortez, CO 81321 USA Tel/Fax (970) 564-8270 |
THE
SISYPHUS PROJECT: Moving Big Rocks up Steep Hills and Into Small
Places
INCA
CHOQEK'IRAW: New Work at a Long Known Site
DESIGN
BY NUMBERS: Architectural Order Among the Incas
VIRA
VIRA: a Chachapoyas site
THE
BUILDING OF SACSAYHUAMAN and Other Papers