Paredones, Nazca

January 6, 2009

The Incas also arrived in the Nazca plains, albeit about 1000 years after the Nazca culture faded from existence. The people of these desert valleys still lived as they once did, maintaining the irrigation canals of their ancestors and producing textiles of similar quality with similar patterns. After being dominated by the Wari they were accustomed to the idea of foreign rule and submited to the Incas easily.

To administer the region the Incas built Paredones. Named in Spanish for its expertly fitted Inca walls, Paredones consisted of a number of adobe buildings, a stone-built palace and a corridor leading to stone steps that take you up to what would once have been a temple to the sun.

The surrounding hills are covered with the remains of lower quality homes, tombs, and tonnes of broken pottery. The entire site covers about 2km².

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