The Ruins of the Present: Cuzco Evoked

Abstract

The discourse of archeology as a modern science appears in Peru with the publication of Mariano Rivero’s (n.d.) Antigüedades peruanas, printed in Vienna in 1851. For Rivero, archeology and the identification, measurement, and general study of Chimu, Moche, Rimac, and Inca ruins provided a foundational discourse for the nation and demonstrated its intricate relation to the past. Ruins—as objects of contemplation and study, as both historical and aesthetic sites, and as the immediate presence of the past—have played a very important role in countries like Peru, Mexico, and Guatemala. Ruins have invited and propelled the imaginations of foreign travelers such as Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), and local intellectuals such as the Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731–1787), Julio C. Tello (1880–1947), and José María Arguedas (1911–1969). In countries with splendid Amerindian architectural legacies, ruins have provided an undeniable and immediate reference to the nation’s antiquity. In some cases, profoundly evocative texts have been authored and, in so doing, an archeo-space for the nation has been produced. This act of imaginative cognition is, of course, anchored in complex, intertextual coordinates; on one hand, it involves in situ observation and interpretation and, on the other, it uses ruins as palimpsests, as sites of free play where creativity and affect generate layered pages that at times prove singularly strong and indelible.¹