Ali Ryder presents the fifth in series of articles, Peru at the Movies. The Royal Hunt of the Sun, from 1969, portrays a somewhat stereotypical Spanish conquest of the Incas, the capture of Inca Atahualpa and his infamous ransom – but with a twist, Pizarro has a human side and befriends Atahualpa.
August 26, 2010 | Film
The Spanish settlers in Spain, upon their deaths, often wanted to be buried beneath the churches they had built on what they considered foreign and certainly un-Christian land. Doing so they thought was the only way of ensuring themselves a place in heaven. The richest or most important Spaniards in Lima were given prime spots – beneath the alter of the city’s grand cathedral. Here, when work on the church’s foundations was being carried out in 1977, a led box was found proclaiming; “Here is the head of Don Francisco Pizarro, Don Francisco Pizarro who discovered Peru and presented it to the crown of Castile.”
January 30, 2009 | 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
Every tourist who visits the colonial heart of Lima visits the San Francisco convent and descends into the depths of its catacombs, filled with the bones of the first generations of Spanish settlers. [...] The church is also home to one of Lima’s most important libraries. Built in the 18th century, 25 thousand volumes of books are found here, many are now almost 500 years old. The furniture found here is original, the cedar-wood chairs and tables were once used by Franciscans when studying. [..]
October 18, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Modern Peru
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
There has long been evidence, most of it barely investigated, that Andean peoples and Polynesian peoples have had contact various times in their pre-Columbian pasts. It has even been suggested that people arrived in South America from Polynesia – evidence of human activity in Chile from a time before humans were supposed to have crossed the Bearing Straits has been found.
August 15, 2008 | Archaeology, History
It was in Cajamarca that the Inca empire started down its path to swift destruction. The newly arrived group of Spanish lead by Francisco Pizarro, aiming to conquer the Inca empire, arrived in Cajamarca to be met by Emperor Atahualpa and his army. After tricking him into entering the city with only a light guard they captured him, ransomed him and killed him.
January 28, 2008 | Archaeology, Cajamarca Guide, History
On the 18th of January it will have been 473 years since Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded his capital in the conquered land of the Incas, preferring a coastal capital for sea connections rather than a Andean one as the Incas had in Cuzco.
January 18, 2008 | History
Trujillo is the capital of the region of La Libertad on the northern coast, and is the third largest city in Peru after Lima and Arequipa. This is where the Moche and Chimú civilizations developed between 200B.C. and 700A.D. Its year-round pleasant climate has earned it the title of “Capital of the Eternal Spring”. It has wonderful beaches, including the famous Huanchaco, which are sometimes venues for international surfing competitions. Fishermen still use reed canoes called “Caballitos de Tortora”, made the same way for thousands of years.
December 6, 2007 | La Libertad & Trujillo Guide, Modern Peru
Puruchuco, the site in Ate I visited not so long ago, has turned up yet more spectacular finds. In the Inca cemetery not far from the ruins in which 2500 mummies have been excavated, archaeologists uncovered what appeared to be a skeleton with a Spanish musket ball hole in the back of its skull. The traces of iron in the skull, from which Spanish muskets balls were made, seems to confirm this.
Dating of artefacts buried alongside the bodies allowed them to date the burials to an extraordinary time – about one year after the Spanish had founded the city of Lima.
June 22, 2007 | Archaeology, Modern Peru, News
The city of Piura in the region of the same name was a pleasant surprise – I had never been here before. It was clean, vibrant and with all the shops you’d find in Lima and not to mention sunny all year-round. It’s a place I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of time in.
June 8, 2007 | Modern Peru, Piura Guide
Ayacucho has a church almost on every block of the city. Some of them date back to the days of the original conquest by Francisco Pizarro. In this blog, I give a brief history of some of the oldest and photos of as many as I could find in a hour or two of looking.
April 2, 2007 | Ayacucho Guide
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Photos and Text are Copyright © Stuart Starrs 2006-2010 unless explicitly stated in the specific article.
Photos may be used only with permission - High Resolution available.
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