Karajia-sarcophagus

Northern Peru Archaeology

Kuelap-fourth-level-walls

The archaeology of Northern Peru is at least as interesting as archaeology in the Cusco area of southern Peru
Peru is a huge country, full of ancient empires, with the rise and fall of spectacular kingdoms throughout the ages.  The Incas were the last era before Columbus, so their gold and empire was recorded and made famous to Europeans.  Today 99% of Peru’s tourists go ONLY to the half of Peru south of Lima.  Peru’s north half is about half the size of Western Europe, and void of crowds, yet it contains the most ruins and the highest level of Americas’ past civilizations. 

Pyramids on the north coast of Peru
Peru’s coast is the world’s driest desert with the richest soil, where rivers from the Andes irrigated gigantic valleys in the past.  The north coast is an exact copy of Egypt’s environment.  The Lambayeque Valley has 260 pyramids and was ruled by kings like Pharaohs.

Chachapoya culture and archaeology, the Kuelap fortress, sarcophagus, mummies, ruins
Now directly inland and high on the Andes Amazon slopes, the Chachapoyans built fortified walled citadels and round stone houses on almost every peak.  Kuelap, the largest citadel discovered to date, is the largest building structure in the Americas and is calculated to have three times more material than Egypt’s largest pyramid. Kuelap has 5 levels of walls inside of walls, ranging up to 20 meters high, and over 400 stone buildings in the top 3 levels.

One unique custom throughout the zone (the current department of Amazonas), was the burial practice of encapsulating the dead in a clay funeral statue or sarcophagus in inaccessible niches high on cliffs. These stare out over the valley with a fierce decorative head above the corpse below in a fetal positioned. Another method was burial in highly decorated mausoleum buildings also high on cliffs, with the 2nd burial of human bones. Then in the Inca Era, the elite were mummified and placed there in a very damp cloud forest environment, that mummies of Egypt might not have endured.

Easy access to the Chachapoya area has only been in recent years. There is much still to be discovered
The first dirt vehicle road to access this zone was built 35 years ago, and before that, the only access was a 2-month walk on ancient Inca roads.  Thus it lay hidden from the modern world.  Before the road, this zone had the largest undiscovered mountains of the Americas, -- and it was covered with lost stone citadels of the Cloud People. Their culture remains a great mystery and different from typical Andean life. Peru’s most advanced Moche and Chimu kingdoms were on the desert coast, and located in-between the jungle of Moyobamba was the Chachapoyans regional confederation.  The Moche and Chimu must have gotten their jungle products of feathers, jaguar skins, medicines and gold through ancient roads in this zone. Perhaps this explains why the Chachapoyans lived in fortified walled citadels high on the peaks to assure “friendly trade”.