Huaca Pucllana
February 22, 2007
Part of the Lima PreColombina series
There exist roughly 100,000 known archaeological sites in Peru and 250 of them are in the city of Lima. If I went to one each week day and rested on weekends, it would take me almost a year to visit them all. This is just in Lima, where tourists rarely spend more than a couple of days.
In the centre of Miraflores in the city of Lima resides a large mound of dry mud that rises above the surrounding buildings. Close to the rising mountains of the Andes such a thing doesn’t seem entirely out of place – until you look closer. Those are bricks… terraces… stairs. Could it be that this formation is man-made?
Almost 2000 years ago, where the city of Lima now stands and over 1000 years before the Incas founded their empire, there was an ancient culture. Not much is known of them, not even what they called themselves, so they are referred to as the Lima culture. From the beaches to the south of Lima, to the ports to the north, and out into the foothills of the Andes, this was their home. In their home they constructed numerous temples, storage sites and administrative centres. The largest, best preserved and one of the few surviving is Huaca Pucllana.
The name Pucllana was not its original, that name is lost. Pucllana actually means play and that’s what it was used for shortly after the Spanish conquest, where the locals, probably between their lessons in Catholicism, would come to unwind and play. That was only 500 years ago, and for the people of that time the significance of the place was long lost. 1400 years ago the Lima culture who built the complex died out and were replaced by the invading Wari people who’s empire rivalled the Incas that would come to be centuries later. After the Wari’s civilisation also collapsed, hundreds of years after, the Incas arrived in Lima at the start of their expansion. So it is not surprising, in the passage of this vast amount of time, that everything known about Pucllana was lost.
In recently centuries, and even up until the 1980′s, these ancient ruins were used to ride horses, fly kites, ride motorbikes, and build houses on.
Huaca Pucllana was used as a religious site (the pyramidal structure) and as a administrative centre (the once-vast set of buildings mostly gone now). The site took 300 years to complete and is built entirely out of stacked sun-baked mud bricks – some of which still have hand prints. The bricks are said to be stacked “library style” in that they are all vertical and have the appearance of a book-shelf. On top of the large structure are holes, where offerings to the earth were made. Things from food, ceramics, animals and even human beings. The human sacrifices were always young women who were slender. It was considered a great honour to be sacrificed and sacrificial victims went willingly. The mummies found here were all found horizontal, face down. Some were decapitated.
Now the site is protected and being restored and researched. There is still much to do and much to find out about this, and the hundreds of thousands of other similar locations across the country.
Photos –
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I like how you incorporate the Google image of the huaca…
Hmmm, mouth-watering! Apart from looking delicious, many of the dishes shown in the video appear to be very healthy too. All this seafood, oh yummy…! The Peruvians should do MUCH more to promote their food abroad, I’m sure many food lovers from around the world would appreciate this.
Rick Stein tries to promote northern European food on the BBC but as far as I’m concerned this is a lost battle, those sunnier latitudes simply have got much more to offer.
I’ve just seen the Yahoo news ‘Archaeologists unearth 1,300-year-old mummy in Peru’ and remembered visiting the site in 4/07 on my trip home from ‘Amazon River Cruise’.
I visited the Huaca Pucllana, then. My trekking trip to Chachapoyas last month was cancelled; but I’ve trekked in Carabaya (from Puno to Cusco), Huayhuash, Blanca; and visited many archaeological sites.
I was so glad to find your information on Huaca Pucllana.
Thank you.
Akemi Marshall, a travellaholic and an archaeological bum.
[...] the area even under the administration of the Incas. You can see much of the same in the sites of Pucllana and [...]
[...] by the Lima Culture, the Huaca Pucllana eventually came under the control of the vast Huari (or Wari) Empire. Although various Wari [...]
[...] of thousands of mud bricks, the same type as you see in the construction of the more easily visited Huaca Pucllana that the Lima built in the same period. Called the “book shelf” style of building, the [...]
[...] //]]> Related Posts: – Makatampu – Intact Wari tomb at the Huaca Pucllana – Huaca Pucllana – Huaca Mateo Salado – Maranga and the Lima Culture – Glorious Pre-Columbian Lima – [...]
[...] themselves after the fall of the Wari empire, long after the Lima Culture and their structures like Pucllana and the older part of the city of Maranga. In fact, this pyramid complex would have been found on [...]
[...] Peruanas will see the building of the Qhapaq Ñam Museum and a tourist restaurant. Not quite the Huaca Pucllana and its fancy restaurant in fancy Miraflores, but something [...]
[...] upscale casual, Rubio is both the owner of Restaurant Huaca Pucllana, which is located near a 1,500-year-old ruined pyramid in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru, and the impassioned former president of the Committee for the Promotion of Peruvian [...]
[...] treasures as any other part of Peru. Dozens of huacas still dot the city, some restored liked the Huaca Pucllana, other’s in ruins such as the Mateo Salado or the much more ancient Huaca San Marcos. With [...]
[...] them into viable tourist attractions, much like what has been done with the incredibly successful Huaca Pucllana in [...]
[...] Lima finns ungefär 250 stycken att besöka. Läs följande blogg om detta: http://enperublog.com/2007/02/22/huaca-pucllana Man har jobbat en del på att restaurera många av dessa och just nu planerar man [...]