Historically, prehispanic world views have been transmitted using symbolic languages, and have materialized in the building of ceremonial centers and their miniaturized representations, called microcosms. For more than three thousand years these realms have kept alive and expressed immense oneiric value in their spatial models –models that offer a tangible habitable reality and a mythic dimension of the world at the same time. These are historical places that were truly built and inhabited by the ancient Peruvians; and even though their tangible spaces belong to times long gone by, the modern Andean people can still recall their ancestral memories and connect with their past. In the inanimate worlds of the microcosms the ceremonies, ritual practices, characters and mythical events all become alive again. More importantly, ancient ideas about space can be discovered, whose validity in many cases is confirmed by archaeological research. In this book, seven co-authors successively review the symbolism of the early coastal remains, the ritualized building practices of Recuay, the Moche worldview models, the visionary spaces at Paracas and Nasca, the codified imagery of the late coastal cultures, and the Inca expressive universe.

Additional information:
Author: Adine Gavazzi
Year of publication: 2012
Language: Spanish
Sponsor: La Positiva
Photography/Illustration: Daniel Giannoni, Nicolla Galli, Varios
Pages: 200
Size: 24 × 32.5 cm
Legal deposit: 2012-13962
ISBN: 978-612-45824-3-1
Copyright: Apus Graph Ediciones