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

The Ruins of Chan Chan

The day after our unexpected but pleasant discovery south of Trujillo, we headed north to the much better known ancient city of Chan Chan. At its height in the late 14th century CE, Chan Chan was reputedly the largest city in the Americas and it is supposedly still the largest adobe city ever built. After about a year of seeing and hearing contradictory superlatives about such places, we have our doubts. Nevertheless, Chan Chan, built by the Chimu as their capital city as they rose to build an empire unmatched in South America until the budding Incas conquered them, is a huge place and impressive to visit. Chan Chan survived as a bustling metropolis under the Inca, and it was not until the plundering Spanish arrived that the wealthy coastal city was sacked, depopulated and finally abandoned to the sea winds.

As one can imagine, this mud city has not weathered five centuries of abandon, coastal winds and periodic torrential rains very well. As we approached it from the road, wandering through the defunct suburbs to the center of the archaeological complex, we were mostly surprised by how hard it would be to take a picture of it. For miles and miles, eroded brown walls sprout from the brown sand against a slate-gray sky in an indescribable testament to the ancient city that also fails to show in the photographs at all.

At the end of the road, however, sits the heavily restored Tschudi complex, the place where tourists such as ourselves come to learn about Chan Chan. The Tschudi complex is one of nine royal compounds that have been identified here. Within high mud walls, the lord of the Chimu once lived, surrounded by assembly rooms, plazas and small temples. It is also where he was buried, his burial mound containing much of the wealth that he owned in life, including servants and young women. Each lord built his own palace, but the site's literature suggests that this complex is more or less representative of all of them.

Within the Tschudi complex, a series of heavily restored friezes and walls awaits the visitor, with models at each point of interest depicting what archaeologists think it once looked like. The motifs of Chimu art are typically religious and related to sea life. Sea lions are one of the most common animals, while sea birds and mythical fish are also common. The criss-crossed brick pattern that is typical of the entire city was once painted white and probably was meant to represent the fishing nets that were so important to the survival of the Chimu people.

We should note that the site also has a small museum near the turnoff on the highway. It is interesting enough, but the overwhelming majority of the city's wealth was sacked either by the conquistadors or more recent grave robbers and what little has been found is mostly in museums in Lima or around the world. Nevertheless, it is a nice little stop on the way back to Trujillo.

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