Summary
Although it only lasted a few centuries, the Inca Empire quickly became one of the world's most famous pre-Columbian centers of power. Handbook to Life in the Inca World is a comprehensive and accessible examination of the Inca Empire, which stretched across the Andes Mountains in Peru from the 13th century until the invasion of the Spanish in the 16th century. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, art history, ethnography, and 16th-century Spanish chronicles, this handbook offers a readable, informative, and easy-to-navigate format that explains how the Inca Empire became such an influential and powerful civilization.
Organized thematically, this new book includes an extensive list of further readings with each chapter, a comprehensive bibliography, as well as original line drawings from the conquistadors. Handbook to Life in the Inca World is a necessary addition to any pre-Columbian collection, as well as a useful resource for anyone interested in the Inca world.
Coverage includes:
- Archaeology in the Andes
- Architecture and urbanism
- Art
- The calendar, astronomy, and mathematics
- Daily life
- Economy, industry, and trade
- Evolution of the Andean civilizations
- Funerary beliefs and customs
- Geography
- Military and warfare
- Religion, cosmology, and mythology
- Society and government
- The Spanish conquest and the post-conquest world.
Specifications
Black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and diagrams. Maps. Index. Bibliography. Glossary. Further readings.
About the Author(s)
Ananda Cohen Suarez and Jeremy James George are Ph.D. candidates in art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. They co-curated an exhibit on Andean textiles and material culture at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College (CUNY) and are currently writing their doctoral dissertations; Suarez is writing on mural painting and social change in the colonial Andes and George on transformation and metaphor in Inca architecture and spatial practice. Both have contributed articles on pre-Columbian topics in Facts On File's Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World and Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Medieval World.