Old Piles of Words Because the word is mightier than the stone.

The Ruins of Huaca Pucllana

While we mentioned a few days ago that we did not really see the attraction of the ritzy Miraflores suburb, we should mention that it does have one redeeming quality: an Old Pile of Stones! Ok, well technically, the Huaca Pucllana is an old pile of mud, but it still counts. The 6 hectare site consists of a large adobe pyramid and part of the city that once surrounded it, although around 70% of the site, including 5 smaller pyramids, was bull-dozed 30 years ago to make way for luxury apartments.

Huaca Pucllana was built and continually modified and rebuilt from around 300 CE and until 700 CE by the appropriately-named Lima culture, a smallish people who inhabited the once verdant valley of the Rimac river. Over this period, they developed a peculiar and effective building style to avoid the destruction of the region's periodic earthquakes by stacking their adobe bricks vertically, thus allowing them to rock with the quakes and settle in their original positions.

Their principal and sole surviving pyramid reaches a height of almost 40 meters over seven platforms. It was once painted bright yellow, and traces of this color still remain. The various plazas on the pyramid were lined with benches and had thatched roofs, with the bases of their posts also still intact. These elements remain intact because, interestingly, the Lima took an extraordinary step before abandoning the site: they buried it. The unexcavated half of site looks like like an ordinary hill.

The city below also features some rare sights. The kitchen that once prepared the ceremonial feasts was found intact, with the oversize jars in which chicha was prepared still sunk into the floors. As the Lima had been remodeling the pyramid when they decided to abandon it, archaeologists found their workshop. The mixing pits for the adobe still contained human footprints from the workers who had been mixing it like one squishes grapes for wine. Bizarrely, caretakers have since decided to put mannequins in the footprints, but I guess that is sort of didactic.

The Lima disappeared as a people with the arrival of the conquering Huari around 700 CE. The Huari continued to use the site as a sacred one, using it to bury members of the local elites. Once the Huari fell, the so-called Ichme culture (a local people that developed from those the Huari left behind) continued the tradition of burying their elite in the pyramid, leaving behind a variety of unique funerary offerings, such as their curious clothed ceramic dolls, which can be seen in the small on-site museum.

A second part of the exhibit features animals that were in use when the Spanish arrived. In addition to the obligatory llama and guinea pigs (still an important food source), we were rather surprised to find a couple of freakish, hairless dogs walking around... like a Chinese crested but big and mean-looking!

Enjoy the pictures and until next time!

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►