Nine of Lima’s huacas to form new tourist circuit

Nine of Lima’s many pre-Inca adobe pyramidal mounds, or huacas, will form part of a new tourist circuit. The plan will include modern lighting systems to light up the historical monuments at night.

March 15, 2010 | Archaeology, News

No Comments

800 year old tomb of shaman discovered

Curandero – witch-doctor or medicine-man in English, but the most direct translation is healer. The tradition of the curanderos still runs strong in the Muchik northern coast of La Libertad and Lambayeque, particularly around Chiclayo. The traditions and techniques of theses healers date back to pre-Colombian times and the the civilisations of the Chimú, Sicán and the Moche before them. Archaeologists have recently been given a glimpse into this period of time with the discovery of the 800 year old tomb of a Sicán curandero.

January 23, 2010 | Archaeology, News

4 Comments

Naylamp’s temple discovered in Lambayeque

After eight months of careful excavation, archaeologists of the Brüning Museum in Lambayeque have discovered, next to the Huaca Chornancap pyramid, what is thought to be the sacred temple of Naylamp, a supposedly mythical ruler that according to oral legend was the founder of the post-Moche Lambayeque civilisation.

December 5, 2009 | Archaeology, Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

5 Comments

Priestess of Cahuachi

Tomb discovered of an elite child dating to the early Nasca Period. With the mummy were various pieces of jewellery made from gold, silver and precious stones.

Paying for a guardian out of his own pocket for 27 years turned out to be worth it for the Italian archaeologists Giuseppe Orefici, director of the Nasca Project. Not reimbursed by his supervisors in Italy nor (shamefully but all too predictably) by the Peruvian state, it is thanks to the Italian’s dedication at the heavily tomb-raided ceremonial city of Cahuachi, a expansive adobe city of countless buried pyramids, that a recent discovery was able to be made.

November 7, 2009 | Archaeology, News

No Comments

Huarco temple complex of Vilcahuasi

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I finally looked out around me from atop the huge mound of sand I had just climbed. What I was standing on was clearly the remains of an ancient pyramid, and next to it was another and another and another after that. I counted twelve in total.

May 11, 2009 | Archaeology

1 Comment

Lost city of Cerro Azul

When the Incas arrived in the Cañete valley they found it fiercely defended by the Guarco (Huarco) people who lived there. It took future emperor Túpac Yupanqui years to subdue them, even going as far as to temporarily recreate the imperial capital of Cusco nearby as a base to attack from, moving the empire’s army there in the process. There were Huarco fortresses dotted across the fertile valley, and these fiercely defensive people had 20,000 warriors at their disposal, reading to die for their freedom – but life for the Huarco wasn’t always like this.

April 27, 2009 | Archaeology, Lima City Guide

3 Comments

Huacas of Manchay Alto

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, Culture & History, Lima City Guide

1 Comment

The Nazca Civilisation

Descended from the older Paracas civilisation, the Nazca are of course most famous for their countless mysterious lines draw in the rocky desert plains in which they lived. They were also great water engineers, creating a series of complex aqueducts.

December 3, 2008 | Culture & History

3 Comments

Two Sicán elite found at the Bosque de Pomac archaeological site

New excavations have uncovered two burials of Sicán elite. The co-director of the archaeological project, Carlos Elera Arévalo, explains that the remains of both bodies were found with gold, silver and copper ornaments that demonstrate their position in their society, and the period during which they lived – around 900-1100 BC.

November 28, 2008 | Archaeology, News

No Comments

Lost city of Cahuachi

The Nazcan city of Cahuachi was a stunning and magnificent place. Stretching along the dusty hills above the Nazca River valley are an as-yet unknown number of pyramids and temples – a good number of those rolling hills are not at all natural features. Some estimates of the area the city covered are as much as 24km2 – bigger than even the famous Chimú city of Chan Chan.

November 14, 2008 | Archaeology, Ica, Pisco, Nazca Guide

2 Comments

No lost pyramid in Nazca

Italian scientists announced to the world weeks ago that their “new sensing technology” had allowed them to discover a long lost pyramid, not too far the the ancient Nazca archaeological site of Cahuachi. Their “optimizing” of the images with their “special algorithms” seems to have failed them. There’s nothing there.

November 5, 2008 | News

3 Comments

Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite

A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru’s Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.

October 3, 2008 | News

2 Comments