Books

The Secret Art of Pre-Columbian Ecuador

This abundantly illustrated publication unveils a group of Ecuadorian treasures assembled by two collectors, and features commentaries by distinguished specialists. The authors use a chronological order of presentation, and make a subjective selection from among the 15,000 objects in both private and institutional collections. Their selection includes exclusively archaeological patrimony objects which have remained inside the country. Through the brilliant photos of the 250 chosen objects, the authors invite us to elaborate an esthetic approach to Ecuadorian archaeology. Above and beyond the archaeological novelty of some of these objects, and the information given, the text is not, strictly speaking, archaeological. Rather, it is a book whose subject matter is the artifacts themselves, at a crossroads of the magical, the symbolic and the mundane, the ceremonial and the anecdotal, the human and the supernatural. It is a valuable contribution to the literature on an as yet little known but culturally rich pre-Columbian civilization. .