Posts tagged "maranga"

Limatambo and the Huacas Santa Catalina & Balconcillo

Limatambo and the Huacas Santa Catalina & Balconcillo

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

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Parque de las Leyendas, zoo and ruins

Parque de las Leyendas, zoo and ruins

Parque de las Leyendas, a zoo built among the ruins of a pre-Inca city, somehow manages to mix ecology and archaeology, attracting hundreds of Peruvian families each day. Off the usual tourist trail for foreigners, it could make a good half-day trip and is a great chance to learn about Peru’s rich biodiversity and about Lima’s ancient past.

March 13, 2009 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide

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Makatampu

Makatampu

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

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Glorious Pre-Columbian Lima

Glorious Pre-Columbian Lima

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

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Taulichusco, Lima’s Last Curaca

Taulichusco, Lima’s Last Curaca

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

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Maranga and the Lima Culture

Maranga and the Lima Culture

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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Huaca Mateo Salado

Huaca Mateo Salado

Found at at the Plaza de la Bandera where the district of Pueblo Libre meets Breña and Lima Cercado, the ruins of five pyramids that make up this Lima Culture complex called Huaca Mateo Salado tower over the surrounding modern houses.

September 10, 2008 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide, Modern Peru

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