Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 8 : Pressclippings, 1977-1981

m ii • I • 1es a E .ven the mighty Caesar, accustomed to the grandiose scule of building that was Rome and the advanced culture of Greece, was im– pressed by the grandeur of ancient Egypt. For generations, tourists have stood in awe at the staggerin11 evidence that sur– vives to show the achievements of these three great civilisations. As they stand in the ruins of the Forum, gaze at the beauty of the Acropolis, marvel at the massive bulk of Chcops' pyramid they cannot conceive that the wonders an age when the central could ever have been European cultures had c:ol· equalled. lapsed into untidy hea.- of But they were. In 10me stone. respects they were In fact, the mightiest of the surpassed. American civilisations - that In recent times, as the of the mysterious Incas that jungles of South America · out-shone even the glories of have been pushed back and the Egyptian rulers - waa at "digs" have uncovered the its height in the ISOOs. And fabulous cities created for the more remarkably, it had civilisations of central Amer- virtually disappeared in a few ica, it is becoming clearer brief years. that the Americas rivalled t~e From where did these glories of Greece, the Roman remarkable people come? Empire and the Egyptians. There are those who have And the wonden of the argued (and attempted to prove with daring e1pedi- 1 lions) that they came 1lrom Egypt. But authors Enrico Guidoni and Robeno Ma1ni in their 'Ille MIiiea <- of Cauell'a tlallorate 1erln, M_.. of OtlllutlN, Slt,'5) allow no arpment. They insilt there ia firm eyidence that the Amcricu . were populated by Asian 'ml&rJ1nta· who croued tho Bei:ini Strait and by 10,000 • B,C.. w 1 ere cstabllahed In ·Colomba and Peru, and 1000 years later, settled u far 1011th aa the tip of South America. The Andes tel11 of all tho cultures that developed from that earliest mipation and offers a maplftce11t c:olleo– tion of color pictures to capture their fantastic crca• lions and constructlona. None ia more utonilhing than The Gateway of tho Sun, a relic of the Tiahuan– aco culture, a 1in1le massive block of andcaite 4 metres wide, half a metre thick, and pierced with an openini,more than tKrce metres, hllh, tho archlt~ve , · , . ~.lali\Jrately carved. .. ·• , ' •. But no other' ·s.n of the book liqlds quite, the Interest or that . 'devoted to the Incas, : · ,.· . . • It is . incredible ·that thia cultured race 'or master builders. who created ma1- ·niflcent 'cities, •connected cve,r pan of their extensive .empire b)'. road • that allowed fast-and reliable communica– tion and mainiaiiled latge and , powerful a~mies,, were des• troyed by •• • .tiny ' Invading ' force of Spani11rds and that they left' almo • t nothing of their history for posterity. In 1493, for instance, the city of Cuzco had more than 200,000 inhabitants. As the authon record it, in the spring of IS32 the fint Spaniards had landed in Peru. By November of that year, the Inca emperor Atahualpa was taken pri– soner. The Incas paid the Spaniards' ransom - a room full of gold - but even so the conquerors garroted him to death on August 29, I 533. The Inca Empire ceased to exist. Sund•y Mall Co/or, March 12, 1918 9