cardal

Richard Burger Discovers a Ancient Utopian Society - and Love - in Peru

Submitted by Helen Atkinson on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 15:19

The site in Peru in the Lurin Valley. Image Credit - Prof. Richard Burger For Richard Burger, archaeology has turned up many surprising things. This includes romance, which blossomed when he met his archaeologist wife, Lucy Salazar, at a dig in her native Peru. “Sites are not all that romantic. There’s too much work!” says Burger. Luckily, however, nearby Lima was in the full flood of a Southern Hemisphere Spring, and love found its way out of the dusty remains after all.

Highlighted Quote:

At the top, decorating the entrance to a central chamber, is a frieze depicting a giant mouth with three-foot long fangs.

About The Author

Helen Atkinson

Last three pieces by this author:

My Favourite Ancient Spot in London - the Female Gladiator | Reserve King Tut Tickets Now! Advance Booking Now Open for Denver Tutankhamun Exhibition | Was Göbekli Tepe a Temple... or a Playpit?

Heritage Key's NYC Correspondent, Helen Atkinson, has 20 years of journalism experience in subjects ranging from the reinsurance industry to canoeing down the Bronx River. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Helen studied English Literature at Oxford, before embarking on a writing career. She moved to New York in 1994 and intends to stay there.

Cardal

The site in Peru in the Lurin Valley. Image Credit - Prof. Richard Burger

Attribution:

Prof. Richard Burger

Key Dates

Initial Period Culture, pre-1,800BC

Key People

Manchay Culture

A pre-ceramic settlement, one of nine roughly contemporaneous along the Lurin Valley, just outside Lima, that together form the Manchay Culture. Cardal is arranged in a U-shaped formation, with several pyramids, temples, and burial sites. There were no protective walls around the city, indicating a lack of warfare in the region during this time. While some of the Manchay sites go back into the Initial Period, before 1,800 BC, experts believe Cardal started around 1,300 BC.

Images

Put your Flickr photos of this object into the Heritage Key group, and tag them with heritagesite-6212, to see them here!

Richard Burger

Professor Richard Burger

Expert in pre-ceramic and other ancient cultures in Peru

Richard Burger is C.J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology at Yale University and Curator of South American Archaeology at the Yale Peabody Museum. He has served as Director of the Yale Peabody Museum, Chair of the Dumbarton Oaks Senior Fellows Committee for Pre-Columbian Studies and is current President of the Institute of Andean Research. He is currently the Chairman of the Council of Archaeological Studies at Yale.

Current position

C.J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology at Yale University and Curator of South American Archaeology at the Yale Peabody Museum

Images

Put your Flickr photos of this object into the Heritage Key group, and tag them with heritageexpert-5929, to see them here!

Tonight's Lecture... the Oldest City in the Americas

Submitted by Helen Atkinson on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 19:11

I'm so excited! I'm going to a lecture held by the Archaeological Institute tonight in New York City, that promises to be very interesting. It's about the city of Caral in Peru, which many experts now believe is the oldest city in the Americas, dating back as far as 2,600 BC. It will include information about nearby and equally ancient Cardal.

Tomorrow, I'm interviewing the presenter, Richard Burger, and will report back to HK with plenty of details about this mysterious ancient city. In the meantime, if there's anything in particular you'd like me to ask him, let me know in the comments box below.

Search

cardal

Richard Burger Discovers a Ancient Utopian Society - and Love - in Peru

Cardal

Richard Burger

Tonight's Lecture... the Oldest City in the Americas

Blogpost