Huaca Pucllana

Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Today we walked to the huaca Pucllana, an archaeological complex right in Miraflores. It was an administrative and ceremonial center of the Lima Culture built around 500 AD. It was known that this mud hill was an important site, but not until 1981 permanent works on the archaeological complex including excavations and conservation revealed the importance of the "Huaca Pucllana". By then people had lived on the site, motorbikes had ridden there, Armando said he remembers friends flying kites there, and developers wanted to build houses on the site so some of the site had already been damaged or destroyed. 



It is believed that the complex was the heart of development of the Lima Culture and served as a ceremonial and administrative center. It was ruled by a group of priests. Human sacrifices were made here as well as sacrifices of animals and plants. It was clearly separated by a large wall into two zones: the administrative and urban zone and the ceremonial sector containing the pyramid made of adobe bricks, 500 meters long, over 100 meters wide and 22 meters high.
 
 




 
Priests conducted here religious ceremonies honoring the Gods and ancestors. Archaeologists discovered textiles, decorated ceramics, bones, stone tools and remains of alpacas, guinea pigs, ducks, fish and other molluscs, corn, pumpkins, beans and fruits like cherimoya, lúcuma, pacae, guayaba. 
 
 
 
 






The houses were built near plantations or close to irrigation channels and typically for this time made of reed and adobe.  
 
 
 

                                                                                       With the arrival of the Wari who overthrow all other cultures at the coast of Peru around 700 AD, the pyramid was used as burial place for their notabilities. Later those graves were destroyed by the Ichma (local residents who worshipped Pachacámac) that tried to impose their own culture. By the time the Incas arrived in the region around 1450, "Pucllana" was already a ruin.
   




This entire site is built of adobe mud bricks. The original pyramid was smaller but from time to time they would add another platform and make it bigger and taller. The pyramid is solid, not like the Egyptian ones. And if you are from places that get lots of rain, you wonder how this survives. The answer is that it never rains here. The first day I arrived, it was a little misty in the morning....not enough to bother with an umbrella, hardly enough to frizz my hair....and yet we heard people describe that as raining hard. And the next day we got 4" of rain in one hour in Memphis. If it rained like that here, the pyramids would have melted away long ago. Which reminds me of another thing that puzzled me for a minute.....  

Here is a photo of the living room of Magda and Pepe looking out and up onto their patio. I was sitting in their living room thinking that when it rained their entire house would flood, and wondering how they kept that from happening.......  and then remembered once again, it never rains here!
 
 

 








 



We ended the day, and our trip to Peru, with dinner with daughter and son-in-law Virginia and Ernesto. Unfortunately we forgot to take photos, but here is a picture of them and their two sons, Emilio and Mateo. Emilio is our oldest grandchild, Mateo is the youngest. Armando saw Emilio this trip, but unfortunately he was out of town whenever we went so Jeanie didn't get to see him. Hugs to you Emilio, from Jeanie!
 

We fly to Miami in the morning....adios Peru!  

 


 










 
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Comments

Beth
2014-09-25

Sounds like another great trip. Just so you know that Peruvian dog that I thought was a llama, kind of looks like Marley

2025-02-13

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