Imagine that all the great discoveries of Ancient Egypt had happened in the last few years...and you will have some conception of the great excitement over recent finds in Peru

Peru wears its ancient cultures wrapped around in layers, like one of the mummified bodies so well preserved by the nitrates of its deserts. After his acclaimed book on the Incas, The White Rock, Hugh Thomson unwraps those layers to show how civilisation emerged so early and so spectacularly in this toughest and most arid of terrains.

Many of the extraordinary cultures of Ancient Peru, from the lines of Nasca to the temple-cult of Chav