18th book - "Machu Picchu" - Berthold Riese - 8 points

"Machu Picchu - Die geheimnisvolle Stadt der Inka" (The mysterious city of the Inka).
An excellent and short onehundred pages overview about the Inka and especially their mysterious city Machu Picchu. It gives us a quick introduction about its official US-American "re-"discoverer Bingham (happened 1911) and a more detailed description about the ancient ruins.
Machu Picchu was built (starting date in the mid 15th century) for around 2,000 citizens (wikipedia says 1,000). It was used for about a century (?) only and when the city was left by intention and very organized it was still under construction in certain areas.
What I found most interesting is the fact that some deformations in the stone construction were discovered which is said to be a secret erosion and it is possible that an earthquake can destroy Machu Picchu almost completely.
The author Berthold Riese is professor for ethnology at the university in Bonn.
I read the 2004 German language edition published by Verlag C.H. Beck oHG, München.