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L'église coloniale et le hameau de Tiobamba, dans le département du Cuzco. Au fond du Nevado Chicón, 5530m - 1969

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
Machu Picchu, la cité sanctuaire consacrée par les Incas au soleil, ne fut découverte qu'en 1911. Elle se situe dans la Cordillère des Andes, au nord du Cuzco, à une altitude de 3000 mètres.

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
Andenes, terrasses de cultures incaïques de Pisac (département du Cuzco).

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
Les ruines de Machu Picchu sont dominées par une colline au sommet de laquelle se trouve un monument taillé dans un seul bloc de granit, appelé Intihuatana, c'est-à-dire la «pierre où l'on attache le soleil». Il s'agit sans doute d'un lieu de culte. - 1969

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
La demeure des Indiens de la Cordillère des Andes est faite de briques en boue séchée, appelées adobes, recouvertes ou non de chaux. Elle est surmontée d'un toit de chaume. La maison se compose d'une seule pièce qui sert à la fois de cuisine, de chambre à coucher et de grenier où l'on garde les récoltes. - Près de la pierre de Sayhuite entre Abancay et Cuzco - 1969

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
Terrasses d'assèchement d'eau salée à Maras (département du Cuzco). Ce procédé semble avoir déjà été utilisé par les Incas. - 1969

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
La Sierra péruvienne est peuplée essentiellement d'indiens qui vivent en communauté et qui s'adonnent à l'agriculture. En certains endroits la fertilité de la terre est remarquable. - Récolte de céréales, Tiobamba, Cuzco, au fond du Nevado Chicón, 5530m - 1969

This wayside cross, decorated with flowers and cloths, stands on the scenic main road between Abancay and Cusco in the Peruvian Andes. The crosses often mark sites that were already regarded as sacred places (huacas) or dedicated to the guardian spirits of the mountains (apus) in Inca times. The placement of Christian crosses led to the fusion of Spanish Catholic traditions with Andean animism. The elaborate decoration with bright strips of fabric and floral arrangements is typical of regional festivals such as the widespread ‘Cruz Velacuy’ (Festival of the Veneration of the Cross) in May, during which the crosses are carried down from the hills into the villages, festively decorated and blessed. – Peru – 1969

A farmstead in the Limatambo Valley, surrounded by farmland and typical eucalyptus trees against a backdrop of massive, barren mountains. Although these trees were originally introduced from Australia, they now characterise the landscape throughout the valleys near human settlements. The farmstead lies at an altitude of around 2,500 metres, between the Anta plateau and the deep canyon of the Río Apurímac. – Peru – 1972

A panoramic view of the city of Cusco, taken from the hills near the Sacsayhuamán fortress. The name Cusco means ‘Navel of the World’. According to Inca mythology, the sun god Inti sent his children, Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo, down to Earth. They were to found a city wherever a golden staff sank effortlessly into the ground – this happened in the fertile valley of Cusco. In the 15th century, the ninth Inca ruler, Pachacútec Yupanqui, radically transformed the city. He expanded Cusco in the monumental stone style and arranged the city plan in the shape of a puma – the symbol of power and strength. The head of the puma was the zigzag fortress of Sacsayhuamán. – 1969

Cuzco, situated at 3,500 metres above sea level and known as the ‘Navel of the World’, was founded by the Incas around 1100 AD. In 1536, the conquistadors destroyed the city and rebuilt it in the Spanish style, making use of many Inca foundations. Thus, the buildings themselves clearly illustrate the coexistence and simultaneity of two peoples and cultures, as is evident in the colourful street scene. The vast majority of the 120,000 inhabitants, however, are still indigenous people. Cuzco is the starting point for visits to most of the major Inca sites such as Pisac, Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo and Sacsayhuamán, but it also boasts magnificent examples of Spanish colonial architecture: the cathedral, the Jesuit church of La Merced, the churches of Santo Domingo – built on the site of the ancient Inca sun temple – and Belén de los Reyes. During the reconstruction following the 1950 earthquake, efforts were made to restore the churches to their original appearance from before 1650. - Book: Picture 80 - Peru - 1969

Cuzco, the sacred "navel" of the Tahuantinsuyo Empire, is today the archaeological capital of South America: Inca, colonial and republican at the same time. In front of the Plaza de Armas, the old ceremonial Huacaypata, stands the baroque church of La Compañía de Jesús where the Amarucancha de Huayna Capac once stood. - 1969

The historic Hatun Rumiyoq alley in Cusco features a masterfully constructed Inca wall made of massive, perfectly hewn blocks of green diorite. These blocks originate from the original palace of the Inca ruler Inka Roca. The stones were fitted together so precisely, without any mortar, that not even a knife blade can fit between them. Following the Spanish conquest, the conquistadors erected their own buildings on top of the extremely earthquake-resistant Inca foundations. The white façade in the upper section belongs to what is now the Archbishop’s Palace. Roughly in the middle of this wall lies the world-famous "Piedra de los 12 ángulos". This single stone has exactly twelve corners, which fit seamlessly into the surrounding wall. – Peru – 1969

Alpacas and llamas graze in front of the impressive zigzag walls of Sacsayhuamán, a monumental archaeological site of the Inca civilisation situated directly above the city of Cusco. The fortress was built in the 15th century under the Inca ruler Pachacútec Yupanqui. The heaviest stones in the complex weigh over 100 tonnes. The blocks were hewn with such precision and fitted together without mortar that often not even a sheet of paper can fit between them. The historic city plan of Cusco was laid out by the Incas in the shape of a puma – the symbol of the earthly world. Sacsayhuamán formed the head of the puma, whilst the zigzag-shaped walls represented the animal’s teeth (or the lightning bolts of the thunder god Illapa). The entire complex served primarily as a ceremonial and religious centre. Today, only around 20% to 40% of the original structure remains. The Spanish removed the smaller stones to build colonial churches and houses in Cusco; however, the gigantic megaliths forming the foundations remained firmly in place. – 1969

At 3500 meters above sea level, the cyclopean fortress of Sacsayhuamán dominates the city of Cuzco. With its three monolithic ramparts in the shape of saw teeth, this “Maginot Line” of the Incas “overshadows the pyramids on the Nile ...” (Tirso de Molina, 1583-1648). Some of these blocks of this giant puzzle, set like gemstones by unknown and great jewelers, are 9 meters high, 4 meters thick and weigh more than 350 tons! - 1969

This young indigenous woman is taking part in the traditional Inca ceremony Inti Raymi (the Festival of the Sun), which is celebrated annually on 24 June. Her clothing and headdress have symbolic significance. She is wearing an ornate crown made from dried agave leaves (maguey) and decorated with small sea snails. Her body is wrapped in a long robe made of natural moss. Beneath it, a traditionally colourful, patterned woven fabric can be seen. – 1969

A re-enactment of the Inti Raymi (‘Festival of the Sun’), a traditional ceremony from the Inca period honouring the sun god Inti. Originally established by Inca Pachacútec around 1430, the festival marks the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere and the Inca New Year. The event takes place every year without fail on 24 June. The photograph shows people dressed as Inca rulers, wearing traditional headdresses, colourful robes and carrying ritual vessels. – Cusco – Peru – 1976

Whilst the main ceremony of Inti Raymi (the Inca Festival of the Sun) traditionally takes place on the esplanade of the Sacsayhuamán fortress, the dances and musical accompaniment are often moved to Cusco Stadium to accommodate the crowds, as seen in this photograph, taken on 24 June 1976. The musicians play the traditional Peruvian Andean harp (Arpa andina) and violins to accompany the traditional dances (Danzas) from the various provinces, which are performed in honour of the sun. – Cusco – Peru – 1976

Musicians from the province of Paruro at the famous Inti Raymi festival (the Inca Festival of the Sun) in Cusco. They play a type of transverse flute, the flauta andina (Andean transverse flute), which is often referred to regionally as a pifano or pífano andino. It is traditionally made entirely from local bamboo (caña) or Andean wood. Such rustic bamboo flutes are typical of rural music groups (Bandas de Músicos Tradicionales) in the highlands of Cusco. They accompany festive dances and ceremonial processions at indigenous celebrations. – Peru – 1969

The picture shows traditional Peruvian Andean inhabitants holding so-called pututos (ceremonial wind instruments made from large sea shells) in their hands. The pututo is a prepared conch shell (often Lobatus galeatus) that has been used in the Andes since pre-Columbian times. The instrument produces a very loud, deep sound and was originally used to gather communities, send signals over long distances or initiate sacred rituals. The people are wearing typical, hand-woven Peruvian ponchos with fringes and traditional legwear. – Inti Raymi in Cusco – Peru – 1976

The photograph shows a large crowd sitting on the historic Inca stone walls of the Sacsayhuamán fortress in Cusco, watching the re-enactment of the ancient rituals and dances of the traditional Inti Raymi sun festival up close. – Peru – 1976

The Corpus Cristi festival, brought by the Spanish, acquires a special splendor every year in Cuzco. During the ceremony, the statues of twelve saints are shouldered around the Plaza de Armas. – 1969

A street food vendor in Cusco who prepares traditional anticuchos on a small metal grill; this is a traditional, very popular dish in Peru and Bolivia. The skewers consist of thinly sliced beef heart (anticuchos de corazón). The meat is very lean, has a firm texture and tastes juicy and spicy once grilled. It is marinated for hours in a mixture of ají panca (a Peruvian red chilli variety), garlic, vinegar, cumin and herbs. A typical side dish is usually a boiled potato or thick slices of Andean maize (choclo). – Book: Image 186 – Peru – 1969

‘To the Liberator of Peru, Don Simón Bolívar’. Historical painting by Santiago Juárez, 1825. Museo Histórico Regional de Cuzco, Peru. - Book: Picture 136 - Peru - 1976

Flute player in the pueblo of Checacupe (3,430 m above sea level), Cuzco Department. Unlike the indigenous wind instruments, which all have specific names (kena, pincullo, etc.), the flutes are simply called ‘flauta’, which suggests that they only came into being after the Conquista as replicas of the European instrument. - Book: Picture 116 - Peru - 1976

Sunday market in Chinchero, Cusco Department. Just as in Inca times, one can still recognise tribal or local affiliations today by the hats or the patterns on the ponchos. For example, the Cuzqueños wear a sort of doctoral cap; the hat from Pisac is gently curved, and those wearing the stiff white hats with coloured ribbons all come from the same area. - Book: Picture 112 - Peru - 1969

Sunday market in Chinchero, Cusco Department. The equivalent of a European sausage stall – an open-air kitchen. - Book: Picture 115 - Peru - 1976

Sunday market in Chinchero, Cusco Department. Chicha seller – maize beer was probably known soon after maize was first cultivated. - Book: Picture 113 - Peru - 1976

An indigenous woman from Chinchero wearing the hat typical of the Cuzco region. The borders on the top of the hat symbolise the Inca empire of Tahuantinsuyu, the empire of the four corners of the world with Cuzco at its centre. The delicate motifs on the manta are also characteristic of this region. - Book: Picture 101 - Peru - 1969

Fruit sellers at Cusco railway station. - Book: Picture 114 - Peru - 1973

Indigenous people in the small church at Ollantaytambo in the Urubamba Valley, above Machu Picchu, in the Department of Cuzco. Under the zealous Spanish missionaries, the indigenous people were very quickly converted to Catholicism; yet, on closer inspection, the old customs and deities can still be found beneath the European veneer in all the rites. For example, St James, the patron saint of the Spaniards, is celebrated with great fervour on 25 July, yet at the same time this day marks the festival of the mountain god Taita Wamani, and Pachamama, the Mother Earth from pre-Inca times, is today identified in many places with the Virgin Mary. - Book: Picture 108 - Peru - 1969

The famous Inca ruin city of Machu Picchu, photographed from the opposite peak of Huayna Picchu. On the left, on the hillside, you can see the winding road (Carretera Hiram Bingham) along which buses climb up from Aguas Calientes. The photograph looks south from the higher slopes of Huayna Picchu towards the ridge below, on which stands the citadel of Machu Picchu. The agricultural terraces and stone buildings of the historic Inca site lie at an altitude of around 2,430 metres. – 1976

The Inca mountain fortress of Machu Picchu, situated at an altitude of 2,690 metres, set against the cone of Huayna Picchu. None of the Spanish conquistadors mention this city on the edge of the jungle, overlooking the River Urubamba (on the right), one of the headwaters of the Amazon. Like other pucaras (fortified settlements), Machu Picchu was self-sufficient in an emergency, but the terraced fields could feed no more than 500 people. This late Inca complex contains buildings of various styles, foremost among them the Royal Palace, constructed from beautifully hewn granite blocks with trapezoidal gateways and window openings. But there are also densely packed, simple stone huts and barrack-like quarters for the soldiers. An oval tower – the only one of its kind – has led to speculation that Machu Picchu was further expanded even after the arrival of the Spaniards. The city was not discovered until 1911 by an expedition searching for the legendary last Inca fortress, Vilcabamba. - Book: Picture 81 - Peru - 1976

The mountain fortress of Machu Picchu, Peru. Initially, it was believed that the various types of masonry found in Cuzco, Machu Picchu and other Inca structures dated from different periods. Today, it is thought that both the walls constructed from interlocking megalithic blocks and those made from smooth, uniformly sized stones, as well as the mortar-bonded fieldstone technique were all employed by the same master builders from the period after 1440, depending on their intended purpose: the megalithic construction method for retaining walls, smooth, evenly rounded ashlars for representative buildings, and mortar-bonded rubble stone walls – alongside adobe bricks – for functional buildings. In Machu Picchu, however, various elements, such as the oval Torreón, suggest that construction continued here even into the colonial period. Inca architecture otherwise features only rectangular or trapezoidal shapes, and vertical arches are completely absent, which, for example, imposed certain limitations on the construction of gates. - Book: Picture 125 - Peru - 1969

The Intihuatana, the ‘resting place of the sun’ or ‘stone to which the sun is tied’, at Machu Picchu. Depending on the shadow cast by this stone, the Inca priests determined the season and thus the time for sowing, an approaching rainy season, and so on. - Book: Picture 127 - Peru - 1976

In a widening of the deeply incised Urubamba Valley, which links Cuzco with Machu Picchu, lies the small town of Pisac, famous for its Sunday market. On the slopes above the town, artfully laid out agricultural terraces have stretched upwards since Inca times, transforming even the steepest mountain flanks into gigantic staircases that were used for growing potatoes, maize, oca and quinoa. - Book: Picture 126 - Peru - 1976

On the way from Acomayo to Urcos in the Cusco region, you pass this waterfall. – Peru – 1976

The striking, rugged peak in the background is Cerro Antapunco in the province of Acomayo in the department of Cusco (4,824 m). The name comes from Quechua (anta meaning ‘copper’ and puncu meaning ‘gate’), which roughly translates as ‘Copper Gate’. In contrast to the heavily touristed Sacred Valley to the north of Cusco, this photograph shows the rugged, equally historic landscape to the south of the regional capital. The slopes in the foreground bear witness to the deeply rooted, traditional Andean farming practices that have adapted to the extreme high-altitude conditions. – 1976

The village of Acomayo (at an altitude of 3,770 metres) in the department of Cuzco. The pueblo is a residential and productive community which, as an ayllu, dates back to pre-Inca times, although the Spanish determined the location and number of today’s pueblos. One third of a village community’s total land holdings is generally held in common and is also cultivated collectively, although the majority of the descendants of the Incas practise a purely subsistence economy. - Book: Picture 104 - Peru - 1976

The village of Acomayo (at an altitude of 3,770 metres) in the department of Cuzco. The pueblo is a residential and productive community which, as an ayllu, dates back to pre-Inca times, although the Spanish determined the location and number of today’s pueblos. One third of a village community’s total land holdings is generally held in common and is also cultivated collectively, although the majority of the descendants of the Incas practise a purely subsistence economy. - Book: Picture 107 - Peru - 1976

The village of Acomayo (at an altitude of 3,770 metres) in the department of Cuzco. The pueblo is a residential and productive community which, as an ayllu, dates back to pre-Inca times, although the Spanish determined the location and number of today’s pueblos. One third of a village community’s total land holdings is generally held in common and is also cultivated collectively, although the majority of the descendants of the Incas practise a purely subsistence economy. - Book: Picture 105 - Peru - 1976

The village of Acomayo (at an altitude of 3,770 metres) in the department of Cuzco. The pueblo is a residential and productive community which, as an ayllu, dates back to pre-Inca times, although the Spanish determined the location and number of today’s pueblos. One third of a village community’s total land holdings is generally held in common and is also cultivated collectively, although the majority of the descendants of the Incas practise a purely subsistence economy. - Book: Picture 106 - Peru - 1976

Detail of a cycle of frescoes in an old mill in Acomayo (Cuzco Department) by Tadeo Escalanda (1807–1832), a mestizo who claimed Inca ancestry and who became known primarily for his frescoes in the church at Huaro (near Urcos). The detail shows an Inca princess, accompanied – in keeping with the fashion of the time – by a hunchback carrying her parasol. - Book: Picture 129 - Peru - 1976

Virgin Mary (90x120cm). The painting is thought to date from around 1690; it clearly reveals Byzantine influence, yet is attributed to the Cuzco school, which, alongside that of Quito, was the most important centre of training for painting, sculpture and the arts and crafts in the Andean countries during the colonial period. Museo Histórico Regional de Cuzco (on loan from Vega-Centeno), Peru. - Book: Picture 130 - Peru - 1976

The nave of the church in Andahuaylillas, a small town with a population of around 3,900 near Cuzco. Built at the end of the 16th century on the foundations of an Inca palace, the church contains many colonial treasures, which is why it is often referred to in Peru – in an effort to rival the Old Continent – as the ‘Sistine Chapel of the Andes’. - Book: Picture 133 - Peru - 1976

A charango player in the department of Cuzco, Peru. Stringed instruments appear to have been unknown to pre-Columbian civilisations. The original charango is a small guitar whose soundbox is made from an armadillo shell. Its rather high-pitched sound is produced by five or six pairs of strings. - Book: Picture 143 - Peru - 1976

An indigenous couple return with their llamas from the market in Sicuani in the department of Cuzco. - Book: Picture 103 - Peru - 1973

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