B 1756 Bellin - INGAPIRCA INCA RUINS - Fortress Plan

Two Original Antique Copper Engravings

Title 1: VUE du Palais et Citadelle que les Rois Incas avoient près du Village de Cañar et dont on voit encore les Murs.
Title 2: PLAN du Palais et Citadelle des Rois Incas, la quelle subsiste encore en partie près du Village de Cañar Jurisdiction du Corregiment de Cuenca Province de Quito Royaume du Perou.

Engraver: BELLIN, Jacques Nicolas.
Published: Paris, chez Didot, Libraire, 1756.

Notes: Two remarkable engravings, one being a view of the ancient Incan palace near Cañar and its environs, the other an itemized plan of the fortress. Ingapirca, the most northern fortress-temple remaining from Inca times. Sun-worshippers built this stone center on a promontory high above the Cañar valley, about 96 Km (60 miles) northeast of Cuenca and at an altitude of 10,595 feet (3,230 meters) above sea level. Ingapirca is a town in Cañar Province of Ecuador, and the name of an Incan ruin site just outside the town itself. The ruins are the largest Incan ruins in Ecuador. The most significant building is the temple of the sun, an elliptical shaped building constructed around a large rock. The building is constructed in the Incan way without mortar. The stones were simply chissled and fashioned to fit together perfectly. The temple of the sun was positioned so that on the solstices, at exactly the right time of day, sunlight would fall through the center of the doorway of the small chamber at the top of the temple. Most of this chamber has now fallen down.

Cañar boasts the most important prehispanic monument of the country - the Ingapirca Inca Vestiges. Cañar, rich in history, was inhabited before the arrival of the Incas, by the Cañari culture from which it took its name. Located 1 hour 45 minutes from Cuenca, these ruins arethe most important architectural legacy of the Incas in Ecuador. Ingapirca means "Incas stone wall". The vast archeological complex includes a roofless fortification, courtyards, terraces, temples, houses and a "castle" possibly the "Temple to the Sun."

Condition: 2 Sheets, original copper engravings, each measuring approximately 23cm x 17cm (9 inches x 7 inches). These engravings were printed in 1756 for Prevost's Histoire générale des voyages (General History of Voyages). Text is in French. These are original engravings - NOT reprints. Rare collector's engravings from an early and important work, bright, crisp, strong impression, nicely preserved. Very Good Condition.

This is an original copper engraving from the Paris edition of 'Histoire générale des voyages, ou nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de Voyages par mer et par terre, qui ont été publiées jusqu'a present dans les différentes langues de toutes les nations connues: contenant ce qu'il ya de plus remarquable, de plus utile et de mieux avere' dans les pays ou les voyageurs ont pentre.....Avec les moeurs et les Usages des habitants, leur religion, leur Gouvernement, leurs Arts et leurs sciences, leur commerce et leurs manufactures. Pour former un système complet d'histoire, et de géographiemoderne, qui représente l'état actuel de toutes les nations.' by Antoine François Prévost.

PLEASE SEE PICTURES FOR ITEM DESCRIPTION

For More   ANCIENT CIVILIZATION   items click here

Antoine François Prévost (Antoine Francois Prevost d'Exiles) (1697 - 1763), usually known simply as the Abbé Prévost, was a French author and novelist. After a dissolute youth he entered the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Maur. He later had himself transferred to the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, but he grew weary of monastic discipline and fled to England. Even before leaving the order, he had begun to write the first of a long series of novels, "Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité". He led an adventurous life in England, Holland, and Germany, but he later returned to France, was received back into the order, and was made head of a priory by the pope. Other works by Prévost include "Histoire de Monsieur Cleveland", and a literary journal, published at London and later at Paris, "Le Pour et le Contre", which popularized English literature in France.

Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) worked for the Dépot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine over fifty years. In 1741 he was appointed ingénieur hydrographe de la Marine. Later J.N. Bellin become 'Hidrographe du Roy' and a member of the Royal Society in London. In 1764 J.N. Bellin published Petit atlas maritime... in five volumes which contained several hundred maps. Among his other works are maps to l'Abbe Prevost's Histoire Générale des Voyages (1746-1757). Bellin also produced many accurate and finely engraved separately issued maps.

VOYAGER PRESS BOOKS  1-888-656-2006 Search Our Store
	in titles &descriptions

For questions please e-mail us:   info@voyager-press.com

Pay me securely with any major credit card through PayPal!