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A striking engraved view of pre-Columbian ruins near Cayambe, Ecuador, from the German edition of Ulloa and Juan’s celebrated scientific expedition to Spanish South America. The image depicts a circular stone bathhouse or temple attributed to the "alten Indianer" (ancient Indians), situated at the foot of the Andean cordillera northeast of Quito. In the background rises a terraced mountaintop sanctuary, possibly a schematic rendering of Cochasquí or another pre-Hispanic site in the region.
To the right is the colonial settlement of Cayambe, with its European-style church and dwellings, offering a contrast between the Inca or pre-Inca ceremonial landscape and the built structures of Spanish colonial order. A legend at upper left identifies features A through D, including the circular stone structure, burial mounds, and village.
Drawn from the accounts of Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan, naval officers and savants who were sent by the Spanish crown to participate in the French Geodesic Mission to the equator in the 1730s, this image reflects both Enlightenment curiosity and colonial gaze.
![[ Peru ] Le Perou et les cours de la Riviere Amazone depuis ses sources jusques a la Mer. . . . 1656](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/113491.jpg)
