Originally famous as an exclusive beach resort in the mid 20th century, it is more popular today with the new population of Lima’s sprawling north. Its mix of Republican-era mansions and beach-front modern apartments still make it a very attractive place to visit.
May 8, 2010 | Lima City Guide
It was not as important or majestic as the other huacas that once stood nearby, specifically those of the grand Limatambo not far away, but at least it breaks the mould of the modern district of San Borja, a district only a little more than 30 years old, built over the farm land that once surrounded this, the Huaca San Borja.
May 1, 2009 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide
Between the two neighbouring administrative areas of Maranga and Sulcovilca was Limatambo. Once a busy town surrounded by fields, only two structures still exist on the edge of San Isidro and in La Victoria.
April 23, 2009 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide
The Huaca Huantille was one of countless archaeological sites lost among the urban sprawl of Lima, forgotten and neglected. That was until Francis Allison, mayor of the district of Magdalena del Mar where the pyramidal structure is located, decided to try to restore it along with the run down neighbourhood it is located in.
April 6, 2009 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide
In the heart of lush residential San Isidro, the Huaca Huallamarca is one of dozens of pre-Columbian sites found within the city of Lima – a densely populated area even then. Heavily restored and open to tourists, the pyramid sits surrounded by huge modern penthouses that are a stark and unusual contrast for such an ancient ruin.
February 23, 2009 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide, Modern Peru
There’s not much left of it now, but there is something special about this temple complex in the Lurín valley that makes it so interesting. At about 3000 years old, it makes the city of Pachacamac just to the southwest look positively modern.
December 18, 2008 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide
The pre-Columbian town of Makatampu stood on the outer edges of the city of Maranga, and as its name suggests, it was a tambo, or resting place, set in the scenery of fields irrigated by two artificial aqueducts. No longer standing – the complex was destroyed in the 1940s to may way for the construction of factories on the old hacienda Conde de las Torres – it was said to have been an important site.
November 7, 2008 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide, Modern Peru
The history of pre-Hispanic Lima is deeply entwined with Pachacamac. Worshipped across the central Andes since before the Inca conquest, the powerful creator god Pacha Kamaq is even revered today, almost 500 years after the Spanish conquest by Catholics in Lima. Today this powerful being has taken shape as the Cristo Morado and has been absorbed into Catholicism, and just as he is today, this ancient figure was also known as the Lord of the Earthquakes.
October 29, 2008 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide, Modern Peru, Traditions
I’ve been putting together a map of some of Lima’s estimated 10,000 archaeological sites. The vast majority of these, as shown in the Lima Precolombina series, are found in the middle of regular residential areas of Lima and include Inca palaces, towering pyramids and the ruins of towns and cities.
Since posting Glorious Pre-Columbian Lima, I’ve had dozens of requests to make the Google Earth placemarks I used available as a downloadable .kmz file. This is something I definitely want to do, but with so many sites it will always be a work in progress. In the course of mapping the pre-Columbian artificial water channels the Spanish thought were rivers, for example, I noticed 3 archaeological sites I had no idea existed.
September 26, 2008 | Archaeology
When Francisco Pizarro arrived in the Rimac valley, founding the city of Los Reyes on the 18th of January 1535, he arrived in place quite different from what you might imagine. Here was an expansive green and fertile land, in the middle of the Peruvian desert coast, home tens of thousands living under the rule of the Incas. Where Lima is found today was once a land of pyramids and palaces, cities and farms, with complex irrigation canals spanning kilometres in length bringing water to every home.
September 15, 2008 | Archaeology, History, Lima City Guide
The Inca Empire had all but collapsed, the Inca capital of Q’osco had been conquered and a puppet emperor placed on the thrown. By following the Inca road from Jauja to Pachacamac, conquistador Pizarro was back on the coast with many of his men looking for a place to found his city. The choice was obvious… the green paradise spanning out from the river Rimac, a vast urban and agricultural area home to tens of thousands of indigenous who had transformed the desert with complex irrigation systems and who had constructed countless towering truncated pyramids that could be seen for miles around.
September 14, 2008 | Archaeology, History, Lima City Guide
In the heart of Pre-Columbian Lima, at the time of the arrival of the Spanish, a vast city was found south of the Rimac River between modern day Lima and Callao. Certainly the administrative centre of power in northern part of the Inca province of Ischma, with Pachacamac an important centre of the south, this city was built long before by the native “Lima Culture” who lived here. Today most of this important complex has been destroyed through the efforts of the Peruvian Government, the University of San Marcos and the Peruvian people in the earlier part of the last century – a time when Peruvians couldn’t care less about their ancient past. Remaining though, and some now finally being restored, are several large huacas, pyramidal mounds, that bare testament to Lima’s long history.
September 11, 2008 | Archaeology, Commentary/Opinion, Lima City Guide, Modern Peru
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