Los Chibchas antes de la conquista españ la. Atlas arqueologico

A very rare first edition of this atlas only, comprising a folding map and 46 plates mounted on guards depicting a total of 135 figures.

Contemporary Bradel-style binding in black half-cloth over marbled boards, spine damaged at the foot, title label partially rubbed away along its length, boards with scuffs and losses to the marbled paper covering, bumped corners, minor wear to the edges.

An exceptionally rare standalone atlas from this landmark monograph on the Chibcha, or Muisca, civilization.

The archaeological atlas of the civilization at the origin of the El Dorado legend, printed in Bogotá.

The Muisca, also known as the Chibcha, were a pre-Columbian people of present-day Colombia whose territory was centred around modern Bogotá. They were conquered in 1536 by the conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada during his quest for El Dorado. They developed the most advanced pre-Columbian political organization in Colombia, forming a confederation of chiefdoms governed by a unified system of roads, language, religion, and laws. Renowned goldsmiths, they produced remarkable gold objects used as votive offerings, exploited rich salt and emerald mines, and gave rise to the ritual of the Gilded Man, from which the legend of El Dorado emerged.

Vicente Antonio Restrepo Maya (Medellín, 5 February 1837 – Bogotá, 5 July 1899) was a leading Colombian writer, historian, and statesman. Born in Medellín, he travelled to Paris at the age of fourteen to pursue his education, first with the Brothers of the Christian Schools at Passy, then at the École des Mines, before completing his studies in Germany. Upon returning to Colombia, he founded, together with his brother, a laboratory for gold smelting and assaying, introduced photography to Antioquia around 1860, and produced a substantial body of historical scholarship, including a study of Colombia's gold and silver mines (1888) and biographical notes on Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, founder of the Nuevo Reino de Granada.

Published in 1895, Los Chibchas antes de la conquista española is Restrepo's magnum opus. It consists of a text volume (Imprenta de La Luz, Bogotá, xx, 239 pages, covering the origins of the Chibcha, their political organization, deities and religious practices, clothing, and ornaments) together with the present archaeological atlas, issued separately without publisher's imprint or place of publication. The austere quarto title page bears only the title, the author's name, and the date. The folding map, entitled Carta del Territorio de los Chibchas, was drawn by the cartographer Manuel M. Paz from Restrepo's own research. The 46 plates mounted on guards reproduce, by collotype, 135 of the most significant Muisca archaeological artefacts: anthropomorphic wooden figures, votive tunjos in gold and gold alloy, representations of the ceremonial raft associated with the El Dorado legend, together with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic ceramics from Colombian collections.

The rarity of this atlas is confirmed by French institutional holdings: according to the Catalogue collectif de France, the atlas is held only by the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, while the accompanying text volume survives solely in the collections of the musée du Quai Branly.