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Hiebert: National Geographic's relationship
with photography and Peru are all intertwined.
All of Peru,
unbelievable country of mysteries and surprises.
This is definitely one of the centers of civilization.
It's really incredible to be able
to look into the eyes of an ancient ruler.
This is the power of archaeology.
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Hiebert: Thank you all for being here.
I want to talk to you
a little bit about being a representative
of National Geographic and working
in these great civilizations
and I like to bring storytelling
to these and I like to tell stories about heroes.
National Geographic's relationship
with photography and Peru are all intertwined.
I want to tell you that little story.
I actually want to start by telling you
a little bit about Peru.
It's extraordinarily photogenic.
This is a photograph by Hiram Bingham
who documented the high mountains of Peru.
This is really what makes Peru
one of the great centers of civilization,
is its geography.
The high mountains, the beautiful rich valleys
between the mountains and the coast.
The coastal deserts which were once
described in the pages of National Geographic
as being small Nile Deltas.
And in fact unlike Egypt that has 1 Nile River,
northern Peru has 20 of these deltas.
It's unbelievable you can have 1 foot
in the fertile delta and 1 foot in the desert.
This makes it an extraordinary place
for preservation and creation
of ancient civilization.
It's a place where archaeological sites
tower above the countryside.
This particular mound that you see in the front
is actually a Peruvian pyramid.
Here's an example of what one could imagine
that looked like in the past.
There are 20 such river valleys in northern Peru.
It's an outstanding, unbelievable relationship
and much of it has to do with the fact
that it is one of the largest, most productive coasts
along the pacific coast of the New World.
Its unbelievable culture, unbelievable country
and it's that geographic relationship
that we like to explain, helps explain
how Peru is a country that can both be described
as having over 10,000 archaeological sites
or as I like to say, "There's only 1 site in Peru,
all of Peru."
It is really, you walk the Inca Trail
and you really can't tell when you're
on a site and off a site.
The entire country from the north coast
to the south coast, from east to west,
It's unbelievable country of mysteries and surprises.
Now I'm actually going to start telling
this story a little bit before
the founding of National Geographic
because so many travelers and adventurers
have been attracted to Peru.
It's sort of mysterious and wonderful.
It's been attracting people for hundreds of years.
Its history goes back more than 3,000 years.
It has separate cultural traditions on the north coast,
the highlands,
and the south coast.
It's really phenomenal.
I have to take my hat off to yet
another set of incredible heroes.
Julio Tello, the father of Peruvian archaeologists.
He was from the highlands.
He really introduced the idea
of Andean civilization.
He began to study the cultures of ancient Peru.
He's one of the 1st researchers
to come up with that chronology.
He had a partner, Rafael Larco.
These 2 guys, they kind of fought over
where the heart and soul of Peru lay.
You had Tello, who was from the highlands,
who argued for temples and islands
and you had Larco, who came from the coast
he said, "Not, it is coast cultures"
and that debate continues to this day.
We all were fascinated by the mystery and culture
and we all thought that this site
which Tello worked at, that Larco worked at,
the famous temple of Chavín de Huántar.
It was really the heart,
the essence of Andean civilization.
It was so important
and it was so mysterious and so luxurious
that it actually became my introduction to archeology
and my introduction to South America.
I had the chance to visit--
( laughter )
Well, okay, it wasn't last year.
All right so, you're looking at this statue,
you see this statue, right?
It's carved and beautiful 3,500 years old.
Oh, yeah, I was a hippie.
Once, a little while ago.
But that's Chavín de Huántar.
What an introduction to South America.
What an introduction to Peru,
to go visit a place.
What a way to get inaugurated
into the wonders of archaeology.
It's great and I became intrigued with the history
of all this exploration and who went and where.
We all sort of looked even further back
into the pages, "Who was exploring?"
"Who was caught with this mystery
of wonder of the archaeology and culture?"
I became enamored with this particular fellow,
Ephraim Squier.
He was a wonderful explorer
for the U.S. government.
He was sent as the commissioner to Peru
by none other than Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s.
This is how far the history goes back in this
and the wonderful storytelling.
As commissioner, he wrote
this incredible book called,
"The Land of the Incas,"
illustrated with 500 woodcuts.
Really, I mean, it was the artistry,
the magnificence, the wonder of this country
that attracted people.
These woodcuts were known and reproduced.
This was a very popular book
published in the 1877.
People were so desirous.
I became fascinated because there was
this photograph of Ephraim Squier
and being here at National Geographic
we're, naturally, very interested in photographs.
But you know, Squier,
he made these incredible illustrations
that are woodcuts in his book
and we assumed that he must
have had a photographic memory.
Look at this bridge, unbelievable.
You had to go to Peru to imagine
that something like that was real.
It was so exciting for me to see,
in a woodcut like this of Alto Peru
which is today on the other side
of Lake Titicaca but still part
of this greater Peruvian...
I became quite curious, being here at National Geographic,
"How did somebody record something like this?"
It was only recently and I was so excited
to be able to find the photo archives
that were the basis for the 500 woodcuts.
It shows the relationship between
photography and archaeology.
We have one of the great photographers
of National Geographic, Kenny Garrett, who's here,
who can attest to the fact
that photographing in Peru
is like photographing a wonderland.
It was amazing to see how beautifully
reproduced the photographs.
Here's one of the woodcuts from 1877.
Here's one of the newly discovered photographs
that Squier took.
He was not only an explorer,
he himself was a photographer.
I became intrigued with this aspect,
this relationship between
photography and archaeology.
I think it's critical to our understanding of the past.
Not only in Peru and Central America,
in Egypt and Greece, it's so exciting.
I became attracted to another one
of the greatest photographers who ever crossed into Peru,
Hiram Bingham.
Yes, Hiram Bingham is known primarily
for describing Machu Picchu, but do people
realize that he was an incredible photographer?
At that time, 1911 and 1912, being director of an expedition
meant that you were also the photographer.
He had this incredible camera created by Kodak for him
and he took these pictures
that were not just documentation
but were art themselves.
They were the 1st rock star archaeology project
in National Geographic.
His photographs really are incredible.
We have about 2,000 of these photographs
here in the photo archives and some day
we're going to do an exhibition
of the photo archives here.
It's just an incredible opportunity
to work with people like Bill Bonner,
here in the photo archives
and see exactly what the genius of photography is.
If you look at this picture
taken by Bingham of Machu Picchu
with the mountains and the cloud
and the local personality on the right hand.
It is such a story,
such a photographic essay in 1 picture.
It's really very, very inspirational.
He also documented the people of Peru.
For me, this is the real gift
that Hiram Bingham gave to Peru,
which is a wonderful photo record
of Peru and ancient Peru
and the people of Peru all living together.
What an inspiration for cultural heritage.
This isn't the only time
that we've photographed Peru and ancient Peru.
We've been at the forefront
and if we fast forward to really
one of the 1st color photos of an archaeological picture
published in National Geographic magazine,
it, of course, came from Peru.
This is William Duncan Strong
who in 1946 came to Peru
and after seeing all these wonderful artifacts,
came in hopes of finding
the 1st intact Moche burial.
Moche is a northern coast period in Peru
about 2,000 years old, very mysterious,
only known from the artifacts
and his intention was to come
and document an intact burial,
almost an impossible feat.
But, they found one on the coast
and to quote from the 1947 issue of the magazine,
Strong and Evans found this burial and everybody
was so excited.
They'd never seen an intact burial
from 2,000 years ago.
So, they opened it up and Evans said,
"I'm hungry, let's have lunch."
( laughter )
I tell you, I love reading past National Geographics.
It's really great.
So, all of his workmen were sitting there confused
because they just found something
that had never been found before.
The next picture which was published
in the pages of National Geographic,
is the 1st time you are looking inside
of an intact Moche burial.
I think that this is something
that National Geographic has taken on
as a cachet in terms of telling
the stories of the ancient populations.
This is a unique picture,
"12 pots that have never been seen together in situ."
This documentation went around the world
in April 1947.
These 2 people, Strong and Evans,
became a hero of mine as we pursued this past.
Here's one of their color plates.
Now, these plates had to be specially
put into each one of the millions
of copies of National Geographic magazine.
We have even more advances in photography,
archaeology and the understanding of ancient Peru.
1988, another intact Moche burial
from the north coast of Peru was found.
They gave a call to Walter Alva
and to Chris Donnan, 2 researchers
who were funded by National Geographic said,
"Please, let's go. Let's go."
We started to document these
in a way that I don't think archaeology
has ever been documented before
and this came out in an 1988 issue of the magazine
which just happened to be on the 100th anniversary
of National Geographic.
I don't know how that came about
but it's really incredible.
The 1st time to be able to look into
the eyes of an ancient ruler of Peru
and see the archaeologist at the same time.
To come up with this new way
to communicate, not only through photographs,
but through these iconic drawings.
This instantly became "the" classic model
for how archaeology is presented,
not only on the pages of National Geographic,
but in every textbook and all the way around the world.
I think it's really cool.
On the right-hand side,
you see the different layers
from the original coffin box
to the way the textiles were laid down
to the way the artifacts were laid
and to the way the body was put in.
Everything done in exquisite scientific
and artistic detail.
It became one of the cachets
of National Geographic and Peru.
These large scale photographs,
this is, I think, the first time
we had a centerfold in National Geographic.
This was a 3 page picture of this burial.
I don't know how they took this picture in 1988,
but it is so detailed and so incredible.
What it is for us who are looking
at the beautiful specimens in the museums
and the pieces of Peru
and the pieces you see on display,
it really gives us a key,
it allows us to have an, "Aha" moment.
When you go back to the exhibition
and you see things like a nose piece.
You say, "Aha!
Now I understand why it's there.
Now I understand why it means
something for ancient Peru."
Or, we see this beautiful turquoise pectoral
and we've just have seen it in the picture
of the Lord of Sipán
and we say, "Aha!"
"Now I understand were it comes from."
"Now I understand its cultural significance."
This is the power of archaeology
as presented in National Geographic.
I'll tell you one more story about the history,
and it's both a good and bad history.
Is that this wealth of Peru
has invited looters to come.
This is where professor Izumi Shimada works
and this is his photograph which he uses
to illustrate the fact that the archaeological site
where he works at
has somewhere, and he said he counted himself personally,
over 100,000 looters pits.
It's unbelievable.
It's from this site that we know
that this famous mask,
we call it the Italian mask at this point,
because it became known
that it was from Sicán.
We knew where it was from
thanks to the work of professor Izumi Shimada.
This piece, actually, the back story of it is,
as soon as it became known
that it came from a certain site in Peru,
it became a celebrity in Italy.
It was as well known as a movie star.
It was neat to see, archaeology, its portrait
was on the front pages of magazines.
Here's the president of Italy
with that handoff moment to ambassador Forsyth.
I think it's an incredible moment
of cultures, ancient cultures,
understanding one another.
It was Shimada's excavation,
Shimada and Carlos Elara,
director of the Sicán museum,
who really spent the time to understand that context,
digging down, down, down,
20, 30 feet deep into the ground.
These are really heroic excavations going down
in hopes of being able to find the context
and telling the story.
In 1991 that dream for Izumi Shimada
started to come true.
He looked down and he saw something
that glittered, something that really
hadn't expected to see.
This is professor Shimada and you can see
the 24 feet of earth above him.
I asked Izumi today,
"Weren't you a little worried?"
He said, "No, we checked everyday."
"Not to worry, not to worry."
It was really incredible and there he found
this piece with its photographs
showing exactly how it was found in situ.
In a way, it reminds me so much
of Strong and Evans description
of the 1st Moche mask, the 1st Moche intact burial
written on the pages of National Geographic in 1947.
The thing about the Strong and Evans article in 1947,
there was a description but no photograph of the mask.
Here it is, magnificent ornamental
elaborate headdress that really shows
the power of the individual
and the power that gold exudes
and the importance that this material is in Peru.
Don't forget, in Peru, gold was never a commodity.
It was never traded for its value,
it was never stored as wealth.
It was always used to symbolize power
and that connection with the sun.
When you see it in its original cultural context
with the flames coming off
and the bursts and the incredible wolf-like animal
who professor Shimada has promised me,
whose tongue still wags back and forth.
( laughter )
You understand that power.
Well, I'd just like to end
with a little bit about the way that National Geographic
and archaeologists continue to work in Peru
and continue to innovate in archaeology
but especially through the lens.
We're really happy to have on staff at National Geographic
some innovators in photography.
This is Fabio Amador who works
for the Waitt National Geographic Grant Program,
and his camera there is something really special
called the GigaPan and he is taking a picture,
this is just a few months ago,
at the famous site of Huaca de la Luna
and these murals, which have never really been
thoroughly documented,
but these type of advances in photography
and in the way we visualize the past,
they mean so much to archaeology,
to Peru, and to science.
Thank you very much.
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