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| Lambayeque |
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| The True El Dorado |
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Tons of gold, silver and copper were
unearthed by tomb looters from the Royal Tombs of Batán
Grande, Sipán and other sites in Lambayeque.
Later research showed that the area comprised between
the Piura and Jequetepeque rivers was one of the cradles
of Andean metallurgy. When the Spanish arrived, pre-industrial
regional states like the Moche –which had built
large scale irrigation systems and developed almost
every metallurgical technique used in pre-Hispanic Peru-
were still very much alive. Chiclayo, the department
capital, is one hour away from Lima by plane and from
8 to 10 hours by car along the Pan-American highway.
The region’s weather is warm, with around 20ºC
average annual temperature in summer and 15ºC absolute
minimum in winter. |
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| The royal mausoleum
of Sipán |
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The first of the tombs belonging to the
Lords of Sipán was found in 1 987 at the Huaca
Rajada site by Walter Alva and other archeologists working
with the Bruning Museum. It was immediately ranked,
as the world’s most important archeological discovery
in the last quarter century and compared to the finding
of King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of Kings in Egypt.
The evidence of funerary rites unmistakably points to
a strongly stratified Moche society where political
and religious roles were very clearly defined. The highest
members of the ruling elite were priest (as in Huaca
de la Luna), religious bureaucrats (as in Huaca de la
Cruz), princesses and priestesses (as in San José
de Moro), or warriors (in Sipán).
At the Sipán burial, the number of corpses accompanying
the main interment, the wealth of the attires and gold
adornments, and the number of vessels with offerings,
leave no doubt about the prominent position of the buried
personage in the social pyramid.
The tumi, or half-moon shaped ceremonial knife –hanging
from his belt or worn as the main decoration on his
headpiece-, the rattles, large earrings, and nose-rings
were worn as a sign of distinction by war chiefs.
A scepter ending in a tumi knife at the bottom symbolized
the chief’s power over the life of his vassals.
The rattle at the top end of the scepter shows an embossed
decoration representing the capture of a vanquished
warrior about to be sacrificed.
After placing the dead ruler’s body on a wooden
dais, his face was covered with embossed gold plates
that replicated in minute detail the shape of his eyes,
nose and chin. His right hand holds an oval gold ingot.
He has a silver ingot in his left hand.
The symbolic gold-silver opposition is found again in
the chief warrior’s scepters and garment decorations,
probably as a sign of his power or control over the
two halves of his kingdom, and as a metaphorical representation
of the realms of the feminine Moon and the masculine
Sun.
The bottom of the sarcophagi, made of wood tied with
copper, is covered by a layer of tropical shells (Spondylus
sp. and Comus sp.) coming from Ecuador’s warm
waters, and ceremonial clothes and decorations- including
necklaces of embossed gold beads shaped as human heads,
and tunics covered with gilded copper plates resembling
an armor.
The platform carrying the body was placed over the offerings
and then covered with new layers of ceremonial clothes.
Each set of clothes included not only the garments,
but also a set of chest plates made with thousands of
chaquira beads, gold and silver necklaces in the shape
of human heads, peanuts, spiders and rays, a pair of
gold earrings, and large nose-rings. Other gold and
copper figurative elements were applied to the headpiece
or the dress. Rattles were tied to the chief’s
waist together with the coccix protector.
Once the corps was laid right at the bottom of the funerary
chamber, the priests surrounded the main sarcophagi
with other minor ones made with reeds bearing the corpses
of the chief’s kin and attendants, some of whom
had died months or even years before him.
The women’s corpses were placed in the opposite
direction to men’s, on the other side of the principal
sarcophagi. Nearby, room was reserved from the llama’s
body, symbolizing the means of transportation for important
personages to the world beyond. The niches on the walls
were filled with pots, jugs, and bottles mostly representing
human figures.
We do not know if these vessels also contained chicha
de jora corn beer or blood from sacrificed humans or
animals. Some of the secondary interments found in the
chamber probably belonged to the chief’s attendants,
obliged to accompany their lord in his voyage to the
netherworld.
In 1 990, two more tombs were discovered near the first
site: the tombs of the Old Lord of Sipán and
the Priest. A mud brick platform adjoining two pyramidal
monuments (named Huaca Rajada) had been periodically
expanded in a fashion similar to the temples and probably
with the same purpose of renewing the chamber’s
magical power.
Undoubtedly, the platform used in the fourth and fifth
centuries AD was a collective grave for various generations
of Mochica rulers. It was surrounded by burials of other
personages related to the power structure. |
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| The Pampa Grande Citadel |
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The political capital of the Mochica living
to the north of the vast Paiján plains was built
from the sixth to eighth centuries AD at Pampa Grande,
on the left bank of the Chancay river.
The urban compound lying at the foot of the Hill of the
Gentiles spreads over a 2 000 by 2 400 meters area. Residential
quarters for the elite and the populace, warehouses and
workshops lie around scattered on both sides of the axis
linking the main temple and other smaller ones. The former
comprises a large pyramid and two pyramidal constructions
surrounded by large walled spaces. Invaluable detail about
the everyday life, production and economy of a Mochica
capital city surfaced during the excavations at Pampa
Grande.
Like Sipán, Pampa Grande was built at a strategic
location allowing overseeing and controlling a vast network
of irrigation canals. In every valley in the northern
Coast, the canals laid out at the beginning of the Christian
era (Salinar civilization) carried water by gravity and
turned the surrounding desert into fertile farming lands.
Vast and flat, the Lambayeque coastal strip allowed the
Mochica to undertake an enterprise with few equivalents
in the world’s ancient history. Wide main canals,
like Raca Rumi and Taymi, connected neighboring basins,
as in the case of Saña, Chancay-Reque and La Leche.
Many of these canals are still in use today. |
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| Pyramids at Batán Grande |
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Dispersed amidst an impressive carob tree
(Prosopis juliflora) forest are the monumental mud brick
construction of Batán Grande. The elongated towering
platform walls have been carved by the rain of El Niño
weather oscillations.
Now known as the Poma Reserve, the forest gives the traveler
a glimpse of the original scenery on the northern Coast
when powerful warlords belonging to the Sicán –or
Moon, in Muchik language- house ruled over this region.
The Lambayeque civilization, another name archeologist
give the Sicán culture, appeared in the ninth century
when invading neighbors caused the collapse of the Mochica
states.
Later, the Mochica political gravity center moved north
to the distant La Leche basin. Sicán lords spread
their power over the coastal band from Piura to Jequetepeque,
amassing considerable wealth. One probable source of such
privileged position was the discovery of bronze enriched
with copper and arsenic.
Batán Grande has also become very well known for
the other reasons. In past decades, grave-looters sacked
innumerable funerary chambers by digging deep wells, up
to 14 meters down. The royal tombs have been carved inside
pyramidal platforms at the top of which were usually courtyards,
hypostylic halls, and other areas devoted to different
ceremonial, administrative and residential functions.
Some document instances point to a rite where the construction
was purposefully set on fire and then abandoned. Photographs
of room filled with gold, silver and gilded copper vessels,
as well as stories about tons of buried precious metals,
triggered a rush of looters to the site.
Fortunately, some tombs escaped the greed of the looters.
Archeological surveys have determined that the Sicán
rulers were buried amongst a funerary luxury not less
impressive than their Mochica counterparts, Gold headpieces
and masks, cinnabar-died feathers, clothes covered with
semiprecious stones and tropical shells were placed over
the corpses on the platforms.
More surprising are the bundles of small L-shaped metal
plates like “playing cards” said to have had
monetary and exchange value. The priests places the cards
at the bottom of the arsenic-copper well, together with
some workshop waste like wood chips and metal plate cutouts.
A new and modern site museum exhibits these and other
remarkable features of the Lambayeque civilization. |
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| The Túcume-Purgatorio Pyramids |
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Batán Grande’s imposing pyramids
were abandoned towards the eleventh century AD, possible
due to catastrophic flooding during a massive El Niño
weather phenomenon. This event was paralleled by the flourishing
of Túcume, one of the most spectacular monument
compounds on the northern Coast.
The large terraced constructions found at Túcume,
that probably became the regional capital, spread like
spikes around the mountain hub. Some served residential
and administrative functions while others were clearly
dedicated to religious ceremonies. With a longer history
than Batán Grande’s, Túcume kept its
importance until the times of the Conquest.
On top of the old pyramids, the Inca rulers added new
constructions blending Inca and Lambayeque characteristics.
At least one high Inca dignitary was buried at Túcume
bearing the mascaypacha headband that was a symbol of
his rank.
The beauty and monumental aspect of Túcume resembles
the grandiose capitals of Mesopotamia, a fact remarked
recently by Thor Heyerdahl, the legendary researcher of
possible pre-historic maritime routes. Heyerdahl’s
efforts led to several excavation projects the result
of which may be seen at the beautiful site museum inspired
in the architectural style of the first Colonial churches
built under a rustic roof of carob tree trunks. |
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| The Chotuna – Chornamkap pyramid |
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Thor Heyerdahl’s curiosity was sparked,
among other reasons, by a myth narrating the arrival of
Naylamp, a founder of the Lambayeque royal lineage.
According to legend, the civilizing hero arrived accompanied
by eight courtesans, one of them was in charge of throwing
crushed tropical shellfish (Spondylus sp.) on the road
on the Naylamp’s feet. Naylamp most probably traveled
on a raft like the Kon Tiki vessel Heyerdahl used in his
famous Pacific Ocean crossing.
One of the places mentioned in the myth may be identified
as Chotun, an imposing pyramid near the Spanish colonial
city of Lambayeque. It is said that Chotuna was one of
the capital cities of Naylamp’s royal house because
the figurative high relief representations found there
are in some cases almost exact replicas of the decorations
at Huaca Dragón in Trujillo’s Moche valley.
Archeologists tend to think that the most popular icon
of Lambayeque art –the so-called Lord of Sipán-
actually represents Naymlap, a winged character of slanted
eyes and aquiline nose who arrived from the other side
of the ocean. Naymlap appears profusely in ceramics, textiles,
and even frescoes on many walls.
Sometimes it is possible to identify an obviously supernatural
being portrayed with the attributes of a high rank marine
deity accompanied by the Sun and the Moon. In other circumstances,
he appears only as a masked human being wearing the divine
headpiece.
Indeed, Lambayeque rulers were buried wearing the sacred
being’s mask over their faces, and with the corresponding
attire. We can assume that the rich Lambayeque imagery
may actually be an account of episodes from the dynastic
myth about the supernatural origin of royal power. |
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| Pre-Hispanic Navigation |
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Naymlap’s myth bears a close relationship
with one of Peruvian ancient history, i.e. navigation
and the exchange of Spondylus, a warm water shellfish
harvested at considerable depth near the Plata island
in Ecuador.
Red and impressive, Spondylus shells were considered the
perfect offering in the native religions of Peru and Mexico
(e.g. Teotihuacán). Spondylus first arrived at
Peru’s central Coast from Ecuador during the Late
Preceramic Period (2 700-1 500 BC).
Ecuadorian balsa trees also provided a light and water-resistant
wood used in making vessels known by the same “balsa”
(raft) name, Propelled by a large square sail, the raft
were equipped with large oars and wood planks inserted
among the trunks acting as a hull.
Some researchers hold the rafts were capable of sailing
from North to South against the Peruvian or Humboldt current,
reaching Chincha, 200 km south of Lima, to deliver their
precious cargo. Others suggest that before the introduction
of the square sale, traveling against the current was
unfeasible, therefore proposing instead that only travel
by land would allow trading with Spondylus sp., Strombus
sp.and Conus sp. shellfish. Expansionist states like the
Chimor, perhaps Lambayeque and certainly the Inca empire,
may have even created colonies or enclaves and introduced
some other institutional arrangement (as taxation in the
Inca experience) to avail themselves of the prized mollusks.
Despite the arguments for more sophisticated navigational
arts, the pre-Hispanic iconography of the northern Peruvian
Coast shows only one-man boats used in river travel, usually
pulled by swimmers, as well as the reed rafts used for
fishing near the shore.
A local reed variety known as totora (Schoenoplectus californicus
) is still used to build the peculiar one-man boats. After
letting the reed dry for a month, it is woven into a sort
of kayak. The rider kneels on the raft and rows out to
the sea. Fishermen in the Pimentel district in Chiclayo
are among the modern users of the ancient caballito de
totora, or “totora reed horses” as they are
called locally.
The Mochica also seem to have to used a sort of totora
catamaran provided with a covered deck but with no sail.
This vessel was large enough to carry prisoners and offerings
to the site of the ceremonial sacrifice, usually a rocky
island away from the shore. |
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