Victor Wolfgang von Hagen (St-Louis, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, USA, February 29, 1908 - Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, March 8, 1985) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 explorer, archaeological historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, anthropologist, and travel writer who traveled in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 with his wife (Christine, later Silvia). Mainly between 1940 and 1965, he published a large number of widely acclaimed books about the ancient people of the Inca, Maya

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

, and Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

s.

In the early 1950s, he went for a two year exploration of Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

's ancient Inca roads and found the only surviving suspension bridge

Suspension bridge

A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...

 of this trail.

His daughter, Adriana von Hagen, is co-director of a museum in Leymebamba (Peru).

Works

• Alexander von Humboldt
• Off With Their Heads (1937)
• Ecuador the Unknown (1938)
• The Tsátchela Indians of Western Ecuador (1939)
• The Galapagos Islands and Charles Darwin: Notes on an Exhibition at the Bancroft Library (1939)
• Quetzal Quest - The Story of the Capture of the Quetzal, the Sacred Bird of the Aztec and the Mayas (1939)
• Jungle in the Clouds (1940)
• Riches of South America (New World Neighbors) (1941)
• Riches of Central America (New World Neighbors) (1942)
• Paper and Civilization (Scientific Monthly, vol. 57, 1943)
• Mexican Papermaking Plants (Journal of the New York Botanical Gardens, vol. 44, 1943)
• The Jicaque Indians of Honduras (1943)
• The Aztec and Maya Papermakers (1943)
• South America Called Them: Explorations of the Great Naturalists: La Condamine, Humbolt, Darwin, Spruce (1945)
• South American Zoo (1946)
• F.Catherwood 1799-1854 - Architect-Explorer of Two Worlds (1946)
• Maya Explorer: John Lloyd Stephens and the Lost Cities of Central America and Yucatán (1947)
• The Green World of the Naturalists - A Treasury of Five Centuries of Natural History in South America (1948)
• A Guide to Lima, the Capital of Peru (Guides to Peru) (1949)
• A Guide to Cusco (Guides to Peru) (1949)
• A Guide to Sacsahuaman: The Fortress of Cusco (Guides to Peru) (1949)
• Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands: A History (1949)
• Frederick Catherwood, Architect (1950)
• Huancayo and Ayacucho (His Guide to Peru) (1950)
• A Guide to Guayaquil (Guides to Ecuador) (1950)
• A Guide to St Vincent (1950)
• A Guide to Machu Picchu (Guides to Peru) (1952)
• The Four Seasons Of Manuela. A Biography. The Love Story of Manuela Sàenz and Simòn Bolivar (1952)
• Highway of the Sun (1955) - about an expedition of discovery of the ancient roads of the Inca
• A Guide to Cusco and Machu Picchu (Guides to Peru) (1956)
• Realm of the Incas (1957)
• The Aztec: Man and Tribe (1958)
• A Guide to Sacsahuaman: Ollontay-Tambo and Pisac (1958)
• The World of the Maya (1960)
• Maya, Land of the Turkey and the Deer (1960)
• The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas: Aztec, Maya, Inca (1961)
• The Incas: People of the Sun (1961)
• A Chronological Chart of Pre-Columbian Indian Cultures of the Americas and World Events (1962)
• The Desert Kingdoms of Peru (1965)
• Roman Roads (1966)
• Roads that Led to Rome (1967)
• The Gold of El Dorado: The Quest for the Golden Man (1968)
• The Incas of Pedro De Cieza De Leon (1970)
• Search for the Maya: The Story of Stephens and Catherwood (1973)
• The Germanic People in America (1976)
• The Royal Road of the Inca (1976)
• Jicaque (1977)
• The Sun Kingdom of the Aztecs (1977)
• Cuzco and Machu Picchu (1979) ABC Pocket Guide
• Capac ñan, Schicksalsstrasse der Inkas