Victor Wolfgang von Hagen

Victor Wolfgang von Hagen (St. Louis, Missouri, United States, February 29, 1908 – Italy, March 8, 1985) was an American explorer author, archaeological historian, naturalist and anthropologist who traveled in South America 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, and Aztecs.

Later he traveled through Honduras and Guatemala in search of the elusive quetzal, a bird once revered by the ancient Aztecs and Mayas.

Von Hagen was awarded the Orden de Merito by the Republic of Ecuador for his conservation work in the Galapagos.

In the early 1950s, he went for a two-year exploration of Peru's ancient Inca roads and found the only surviving suspension bridge of this trail.