If you’re in Lima, you don’t have far to go to experience ancient history. Just hop a cab to the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in the upscale Miraflores District. Entrance fees are s/.15 per person ($4.50 USD) and they run guided tours in Spanish and English alternating every half hour. You can take a tour at night for an additional s/.2, which I’m sure is needed to cover the costs of running the massive lights they have set up. From the pictures I’ve seen, it looks super cool.
The tour starts in the small but mighty museum that houses a few of the items found at the dig and some background information about the pre-Incan peoples who set up the pyramid-esque site. They practiced human sacrifice, worshiped shark deities (on account of the ocean-view), and had tons of political in-fighting. The rich were buried in enclosed jars at the top of the adobe clay brick structure. It doesn’t sound horribly different than what we do today.
The site, we were told, is completely solid and possesses no chamber of secrets. Words can not express how disappointed I was to learn this. Still, we trekked onward and upward because the top of the site is where all the people of power hung out. It has a great view.
At the top of the pyramid, we learned of more human sacrifice. The very rich, it seems, would have one to three babies killed and buried with them because babies were close to the spirit world. Guess whose babies they used? Yeah, things haven’t changed.
The entire site is built on vertically stacked adobe bricks. This “bookcase” arrangement handles the area’s earthquake activity fairly well. The downside to using clay is that much of it has dissolved over the centuries and left vast stretches of the site under 2 meters or more of dust. It will take archaeologists another 20-30 years to finish digging out the site.
The visible bricks, BTW, have been excavated, removed, treated, and put back into their original place in the structure. This was done to prevent erosion from dissolving newly uncovered remains.
We also learned that there are about 45 active archaeological sites in Lima, though only five are open to the public. They estimate that about ten times that number were destroyed or built-over before they realized what they had. This site, in fact, was popular for motor-cross and local games of hide-and-seek not even fifty years ago.
The tour finished with a trek through the administrative side of the temple, a visit with the museum’s hairless dogs, and a peak the local fauna and flora of the region. We saw quinoa, corn, and potato plants among other things, and met the local herd of llamas and alpacas. Since these bite and spit, no petting was allowed. Story of my life.
I would recommend this tour only for those who are physically able to handle the steep sloping path to the top of the pyramid. The ancients weren’t too keen on accessibility. On the other hand, if you like history, short lines, and small groups this is an awesome way to spend an hour or so. Just don’t be freaked out by walking away with ancient pre-Incan dust on your shoes. You’ve been warned.
I guess when I think of human sacrifice, babies were never part of the scenario. No judgement other than, “Take your own damn *rich* babies as spirit guides!”
Spirit animal? Alpaca for me. My mouth is too perpetually dry for the other.
Right? I still find their human sacrifice subjects disturbing. More on this: virgin girls were buried in a face-down fetal position with their hands covering their face in the corners of the structure. Mothers were sacrificed for fertility rites. Less disturbing, they also buried fermented shark.
What I’m missing here is the roster of male sacrifices: virgin males, fathers. Yes, human sacrifice is disturbing and sexist but I’d go for a bit more balance in the afterlife.