A Sacred LandscapeThe Search for Ancient Peru

Many of the extraordinary cultures of Ancient Peru, from the lines of the Nasca to the temple-cult of Chavín and the great pyramids of the coast, have only started to give up their secrets in just the last few years.

Hugh Thompson has been at the forefront of some of these discoveries. He made headlines with his work near Machu Picchu, which he recounted brilliantly in The White Rock. Now he takes the reader on a journey back from the great Moche pyramids to remote sites in the Central highlands that date back to the first millennium BCE--ancient Incan sites of the Andes that remain cloaked in mystery. Thompson gives an immensely personal and accessible guide to the region's wonders alongside the story of his family's relocation to a farm in the Yucay valley, the one-time heartland of ancient Peru.

Drawing on the year that he spent alongside contemporary Peruvians, Thompson illuminates how things have changed--or failed to change--in the five centuries that separate contemporary Peru from the civilization that is one of the world's oldest and most captivating enigmas.