On October 18th I decided to take a daytrip out to some of the oldest ruins in Peru, known as Caral. I contacted a tour company called Viaje Educativo and arranged to meet their tour group in the morning for transport to the ruins. After 3 hours on the bus (and a breakfast stop) we arrived at the pyramids of Caral, home of the 3,000 person strong Caral culture who lived there between 2600 BCE and 2000 BCE (apparently during the time of Egypt’s pyramids) – this date makes Caral one of the oldest ruins in the Americas. Caral has been carbon dated using woven reed bags. Much of the complex lies in a fertile valley surrounded by mountains. It includes plazas, assembly spaces, an alter, an amphitheater, and many residential areas. In fact, the site is so grand that within the first 44 km of the valley there are 23 former public buildings.
Next we headed to see some of the 8 (out of 20 total) residential complexes in the lower middle part of the ‘nuclear’ section of the Supe Valley. Interestingly, while many residential and items for ‘play’ have been found in the pyramids (such as some 70 flutes and cornets made of animal [condor, pelican, deer, and llama] bones) no serious weapons have been found – only cutting tools such as a basic ax made out of quartz.
Found in the Pyramid ‘La Huanca’ was a small cotton bundle known as an ‘eye of god.’ This bundle was likely an offering placed inside building constructions for religious or ritual purpose. Also it is this pyramid, along with the Pyramid ‘La Galeria’ which together form a plaza where a large stone known as a huanca was placed into the ground.
Next we came to the Pyramid La Galeria, the third largest pyramid in the Caral complex. Outside of this pyramid was a spiral-shaped petroglyph carved into one of the rocks, possibly symbolizing life or water, but no one really knows. An info board explained that in this pyramid a ‘quipu’ was found – the same record keeping knotted rope system used as late as the Inca people. Finding a quipu here changes the date on the record keeping system, placing its use far older than originally thought.
One of the lesser pyramid complexes nearby had evidence of work completed on its staircase – its position has been shifted numerous times. There were also buildings named E2 and E3 which were longer but quite in shambles still.
We stopped for a while at the Central Plaza, which had a sunken circular plaza, stepped platforms, a square alter with a fireplace, and underground ventilation ducts. From the way the Central Plaza and Caral is constructed, it is believed that Caral may have been used as a calendar in its 1000 years of operation. Each building may have been connected to a certain astral position with a special deity and associated rituals.
Our guide led us around the pyramids, starting with the amphitheater. In the amphitheater was the small ceremonial center called the ‘alter of the sacred fire.’ This center had a round alter containing a two level fireplace containing ash, coal, bone, seeds, quartz, and pieces of a gourd. The set-up included an underground ventilation duct to keep the fire going (meaning they manipulate fire before the Western world,) and a separate room (a silo) in which was found shaped stone sickles.
Nearby the ruins of Caral (but our limited time tour didn’t allow us to venture out here) was a giant geoglyph called the geoglyph of Chupacigarro (a large face shape made in the ground with circular stone lines) only just discovered in 2000 by Marco Machacuay. This long-haired face with its eyes closed, mouth open, and flowing hair is apparently similar to one at another site we visited called Sechin, though the image was built at the same time as Caral.
After our tour of Caral we stopped for a huge (and I mean, huge) lunch of chicken, potatoes, and loads of chicha morada. The meal was fantastic but gigantic and I couldn’t finish most of it. But it was great to have more Peruvian potatoes.
The next ruins we visited was the site of Aspero, a cluster of residential and public buildings still somewhat standing among the totora reeds. The reeds made some of the swampland before leaving for a museum nearby. The reeds and animals within them played a huge role in the Aspero culture, especially in the food they consumed. Ancient remains of fish, mussels, and clams were found around the site, as well as other agricultural products from the nearby mountains.
This site included the ‘Huaca de los Idolos’ (which includes a pyramid-shaped, stepped building with a ceremonial hall in which skulls and other domestic items have been found) and the elite and non-elite residences (the latter including processing rooms and storerooms.) There were also rectangular and semi-circular areas for processing and drying fish (anchovies which dehydrate well) and a few subterranean structures for food storage.
One of my favorite buildings were the Pyramids of the Flutes, made with quincha (mud and cane) which rested on a platform foundation of stone. Some of the buildings were built with shicras filler to enlarge them. Shicras are vegetable fiber bags filled with stones up to 2 meters in size, so made because this building material helps prevent earthquake damage. The whole structure was then surrounded with cut stones, then eventually plastered over. We came across a ‘Huaca of the Sacrifices’ (which contained sacrificed bodies young and old) and the ‘Huaca of Spondylus beads’ found next to it.
The ‘High Huaca’ had some interesting pieces inside it, including a piece of sperm whale bone decorated with carvings. For the construction of this Huaca the building was destroyed and built numerous times. There are also more storage and food drying sections within this pyramid. In this area there were three different phases of occupation including going from an initial occupation which left waste around the living site, to an occupation where they built workshops and constructed a series of storage spaces lined with cut stones. Near this was the pyramid of the Spondylus Shell which had many pieces of shell jewelry found within it.
At the museum we saw some stone and clay carvings found at Aspero which represented humans killed during sacrificial rituals. There were also items found from another site in the Caral complex called Vichama, including 26 pieces of whale vertebrae. There was even an entire skeleton found of a blue whale! Also found at Vichama were clay figures of animals (including frogs) and musical pipes with monkeys depicted on them. At the site some skin of a Howler monkey was found.
After the day trip, on October 19th, Colin and I decided to head out to an exhibit at Lima’s National Museum which had many photos of incidents with members of the Maoist communist guerrilla party of Peru known as the Shining Path. The Peruvian government considers the Shining Path a terrorist organization, and they sure did kill many peasants, trade union organizers, elected officials, civilians, and military officers. The Peruvian government’s military however was just as brutal, killing many innocent people and poor Shining Path members rather than imprisoning and putting them on trial, or listening to their concerns. Here are some of the photos we saw at the museum:
At a different part of the museum there was an exhibit about Carnivals in Peru, as well as some colorful modern art. At the end of this museum, we were also at the end of Lima.
On to Ayacucho for me overnight in the evening of the 19th!
Francesca
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