Some of the most interesting and sought-after pieces in The Galeatea Collection are created by our artisans from Peru. So, why not take a peek at some well-known and not so well-known reasons why Peru, the land of the Incas, has retained much of its mythical feel and reflected in the designs from this region of the world? Peru, the ancient heart of the great Inca Empire, is a country with an amazing history. Take a few minutes and discover why.

Peru is a top destination for travelers interested in landscape and culture. But it also has a modern, urban side that looks to the future rather than the past. Peru is a large country, and encompasses an array of dramatic landscapes that include high mountains, sandy beaches, and the sweltering jungle. Peru has one of the greatest biodiversities in the world, due to the presence of these dramatic geographical features as the coast, Andes, and Amazon River.

Image: Lima Coast

Peru is located on the West Coast of South America, south of the Equator line with 80 world ecological habitats. Andean peaks surround one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu. Lush tropical rainforests, Amazonian jungles, sandy beaches, deserts, remote farmland and fishing villages make up the Peruvian landscape.

Fun Fact: Peru has 2,414km of coastline with a wide variety of beaches that are becoming increasingly popular for Peruvians and tourists.

Peru, the ancient heart of the great Inca Empire, is a country with an amazing history that can still be seen in the communities today. The country has a diverse population, which includes the Quechua Indians (descendants of the Incas), mestizos (a blend of Indian and European) ancestors, and people of Spanish ancestry. All of these influences can be seen in the Colonial architecture still very present in remote villages and modern cities.

Image: Taquile Island in Lake Titicaca

In particular, the cultural capital of Cuzco offers a glimpse into the country’s proud history, as the center of the Sacred Valley and the explorer’s base for the lost city of Machu Picchu. Peruvian culture is a masterful mix of Hispanic and native traditions. The Quechua and the Aymara are the two main native cultures of Peru, both of whom speak their native languages. These Inca descendants have successfully preserved and developed their proud cultures and this can be seen in how they weave into also aspects of their lives, including their art, architecture, music, food, etc.

Along with the stunning Inca ruins near Cusco and the great city of Machu Picchu, Peru is home to the Nazca lines etched on its coastal deserts, the Colla burial chullpas near Lake Titicaca, the enormous adobe city of Chan Chan, the great Moche adobe pyramids and burial sites near Trujillo and Chiclayo, and the massive stone citadel of Kuelap near Chachapoyas. These cultures left no written records, just mysterious and beautiful works in gold, silver, textiles and stone.

Image: Ruins in Machu Picchu

But ancient ruins are only a fraction of the story. Roughly half of Peru’s over 30 millions people are of indigenous origin (45% of the population); often living in remote mountain villages, they still speak the Quechua or Aymara tongue of their ancestors, and many of their beliefs and customs are a mixture of traditional Andean ways and the culture imposed by the Spanish conquistadors. There are also more than 50 ethnic groups who live in Peru’s Amazon region, some of whom still shun contact with the outside world.

Fun Fact: The city of Arequipa is a little known treasure; the "white city" is named after the color of the light gray natural volcanic stone from which it was built.

Image: Cathedral in Cuzco

Peruvian food is different in each region across the country, so what they eat depends on where they live. Cuisine from the coast is based on seafood. Ceviche is Peru’s classic seafood dish and can be found throughout the region, from local markets to high-end restaurants serving it with their own little twist. Dishes from the Amazon use fish available in rivers and lots of tropical fruits. Andean cuisine is based on potatoes and meat. Thousands of years ago potatoes, maize, quinoa and the meat of llamas and guinea pigs were the only resources in the Andes. Today Peruvians combine those staple foods with others introduced by Europeans to create tasty and unique dishes. Corn, or Choclo, as it’s called in Peru, remains a main staple of the daily diet. The country has more than 30 varieties, in every color and size imaginable. Some ancient cooking methods are still used today such as pachamanca, a hole dug in the ground and covered with hot stones where meat and potatoes are cooked.

Fun Fact: Peru grows over 55 varieties of corn, and it can be found in colors ranging from yellow to purple, white, and black. Ancient Peruvians used corn for bartering and as a form of currency as well as for food.

 Image: Traditional Peruvian Dish- Lomo Saltado

The influence on Peru’s culture is based on a set of beliefs, customs and a way of life inherited from the native Incas, Spanish conquistadors and settlers. Immigrant groups such as Africans, Japanese, Chinese and Europeans have also contributed to the society, blend of cultures and ways in which Peruvians live. Whatever their ethnic background, the importance of family and religion can be found in all areas of the country. Often, generations of a family live together where the younger look after the elderly and the elderly pass along traditions of workmanship and living.

The route to most villages in the Peruvian Andes is a narrow, graded-earth road, bakes concrete-solid under the fierce sun of the dry season, and awash with torrents of rain, slick with mud, narrowed or closed by rockslides, during the rains.

The villages reached by these roads are mostly inhabited by Quechua-speaking descendants of groups once ruled by the Incas. These resilient people have adapted, whenever it was inevitable or advantageous, to the alien Spanish culture forced on them, creating a distinctive version of the ardent Catholicism of their conquerors, and incorporating introduced crops and livestock into their agrarian repertoire.

Image: Oasis near Nazca Lines called Ica

In the rural areas and in the mountains of the Andes, houses are typically made of adobe bricks or stone, with packed-earth floors and thatch roofs, and an occasional flash of corrugated steel indicating some source of cash income. The open rafters inside are blackened from years of cooking over an open hearth or clay oven in the corner.

Communities often consist of farmhouses scattered about the mountainside, whose center is a soccer field, and perhaps a schoolhouse and chapel. The landscape is stitched with precarious stone walls, built more for removing rocks from the soil than for setting boundaries.

Fun Fact: Peru has over 1,800 species of birds. The Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) is the largest bird in the world that flies when combining both its wingspan and its weight. From one wingtip to the other, there can be a distance of up to 10 ft 10 in.

Image: Traditional Peruvian Weaving Loom

Spanish peasant costumes of the 16th century were adopted, and in derivative forms are still worn to this day. The fundamental outline of the highland rural life today more resembles that of a medieval European village than the lifestyles of the Information Age.

As in so many other elements of Peruvian life and culture, art in Peru has been an important part of its communities for thousands of years. Many skilled artisans continue the traditions handed down through generations today. Native Amerindians still spin cotton, llama, alpaca and sheep wool into yarn and weave the yarn into cloth that is used to make clothing and other textiles. Weaving has distinctive colors and patterns distinguishing particular villages.

By the beginning of the Common Era, virtually every textile technique to be invented was already in use in Peru. The first Europeans met natives using weaving techniques to make roofs, bridges, armor, slingshots, accounting devices, and of course cloth, woven from cotton, llama, alpaca and- as the highest privilege- the finest vicuna wool. Soldiers were paid in cloth, and the coded symbols in the tunics of the nobility displayed a rich store of social and cultural information. Woven fabrics were also exchanged for other products or offered as presents to the conquered people.

Fun Fact: There are over 10 million alpacas in the world, and three-quarters of them live in Peru.

Image: Festival

Many of Peru’s crafts have pre-Columbian origins, yet have incorporated new designs and contemporary motifs. Long before the Incas, Peru was a land of craftspeople. Fine weaving found in the funeral bundles at Paracas, gold pieces worked by the Chimu people in northern Peru, and startlingly realistic Moche ceramic pay testimony to a people for whom work done with the hands was always important. In the Inca Empire, specially chosen women dedicated their lives to such tasks as weaving delicate capes from the feathers of exotic birds. Metallurgy was also a high-status occupation long before the Spaniards arrived in the New World.

Handicrafts played multiple roles in indigenous cultures that had no written language. Moche ceremonial cups were not simply for drinking: they told stories- depicting everything from festivities to daily events. The patterns on clothes woven in the highlands have unraveled some of the secrets of how the Aymara people lived.

The designs used in some clothes depicted the status of the wearer; other garments were used only for special celebrations, and still others had woven into them motifs that were important to the community. After the Spanish conquest, handicrafts began to fuse the old and new ways, as Indian woodcarvers whittled statues of the Virgin Mary dressed like a campesina, or angels with indian faces.

Some handicrafts are found all over the country, but in different colors and designs, such as the popular wall-hangings displayed in outdoor markets. Other items come from only one community or region. The decorative gilt-edged mirrors sold in Peru generally originate in Cajamarca; authentic ceramic Pucara bulls are crafted in Pupuja, near Puno; real Yagua jewelry comes only from the jungle area near Iquitos.

Chile has its lapis lazuli and Colombia its emeralds, but the item most associated with peru is gold, with silver and copper running close seconds. Although much of today’s artesania is more practical than illustrative and is geared toward tourists, some items still tell stories. Colors in the textiles and knitted goods on Taquile, the distinctive weavers island in Lake Titicaca, can indicate the wearer’s marital status or community standing. Some colors are used only on certain holidays. Everywhere you go on Taquile Island you will see men knitting the distinctive woolen hats which they habitually wear. Legend has it that the rainbow Kuyichi, angered by the Taquile people, took away their color and left them in a world of grays and browns, but the people used their fingers to weave color back into their lives. 

Other handmade crafts include wood carving and jewelry, especially gold and silver. Wood carvings range from functional to elaborate furniture to colorful wooden altars with carved religious and everyday scenes and figurines. Pottery is crafted to reflect ancient Moche and Nazca patterns and designs.