John Eide

After sailing along the Antarctic Peninsula, (see Antarctica, to the left) I flew to Peru to meet a friend. We spent two weeks exploring Inca ruins. What immediately fascinated me was the connection between the quarry project I had done on the islands of Maine and these Inca ruins built five hundred years ago.

The Maine Quarry Project was about the men who quarried and carved the granite on the islands. With the Inca ruins, I was interested in looking at the process of building their structures. Where they located their cities, the moving of the rocks, then shaping the stone, the sophisticated way in which they constructed not only the cities but their gardens, living and ritual areas. I felt it was a continuation of what I had started much earlier on the Coast of Maine where man altered the land to create beautiful Beaux-Arts building from Maine granite to the Incas altering the land for their living and ritual uses.

The Peruvian Inca ruins were photographed in Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu in March of 2014.