Metaphysical Revolutions in the Ancient Andes: Ritual, Persons, and Power from 1500 BC until the Conquest - Softcover

Wilkinson, Darryl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1009655086 ISBN 13: 9781009655088

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2026

Synopsis

The material and visual culture of late precolonial Andean societies-especially the Inka Empire-looked radically different from their predecessors. For millennia, the iconography of the ancient Andes was dominated by warriors, sacrificial rites, apex predators and chimerical beings whose bodies were amalgamations of multiple human and animal species. Yet by AD 1000, these images had almost entirely vanished. This study offers the first ever analysis of these dramatic transformations. Far more than simply a change of aesthetic preferences, or even a shift in ideology, it posits a series of metaphysical revolutions in which Andean sociality was fundamentally altered. The basis of personhood, the creation of value and the nature of political power itself all came to be refigured in far-reaching ways. Specifically, a once-dominant metaphysics focused on the predatory extraction of vitality from enemies disappeared, to be replaced by one grounded in reciprocal exchanges between human and nonhuman beings.

About this title

About the Author

Darryl Wilkinson is an assistant professor of religion at Dartmouth College. He received his training in archaeology at Oxford University and Columbia University, after which he taught at Cambridge University. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009655086
• ISBN 13: 9781009655088
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 339