5,500-Year-Old Circular Pyramid Discovered In Peru

Archaeologists in Peru have discovered an ancient ceremonial centre and a circular-shaped pyramid in Miravalles, in the region of Cajamarca in northern Peru.

According to a news report in The Epoch Times, the site dates back an incredible 5,500 years. Until now, it was believed that the Norte Chico civilization of Supe, Peru was the earliest civilization in the Americas.

Their capital was the Sacred City of Caral – a 5,000-year-old metropolis complete with complex agricultural practices, rich culture, and monumental architecture, including six large pyramidal structures, stone and earthen platform mounds, temples, amphitheatre,  sunken circular plazas, and residential areas.

However, the latest discovery suggests that the Norte Chico civilization may not be the oldest after all.

The discovery was announced by researcher Victor Colan at a Peruvian press conference on 21st October. Colan revealed that the research team found a ceremonial centre and a circular step-pyramid (known in Peru as Huacas), with three platforms 30 meters in diameter.

The pyramid resembles two other circular Huacas found in Jaen, also in the Cajamarca region. 

The structure had large semi-circular walls built with a mixture of mud mortar and stones up to 200 kg in weight.

“The archaeological site of Miravalles in the province of San Miguel in Cajamarca with 5,500 years, is 500 years more ancient than the sacred city of Caral,” said Colan.

“Not only Caral is the original centre of the civilization of Peru but so is Cajamarca, in northern Peru.”

The researcher concluded that “Peru is the oldest civilization in the world along with Mesopotamia and Egypt,” and asked the Ministry of Culture to continue financing the excavations.

Ancient erotic pottery teaches Peruvians to prevent prostate cancer

The Larco Museum in Peru boasts one of the finest collections of pre-Columbian Mochica sculptures in the world — and most of them are very sexually explicit. But rather than keep them encased in displays, the museum has recently begun to use the ancient artworks to promote self-screening for cancer.

According to Reuters, the exhibition, called “Touch the Genitals of the Mochica,” launched on Feb. 25, 2022, and allowed men to touch the sculptures, which are over 1,000 years old.

With hundreds of items on display, visitors perused a wide variety of sexualized sculptures. Depicting a range of erotic acts and sexual anatomy, these clay ceramics left some museumgoers visibly shy. Ultimately, the museum encouraged touching them to learn how to spot cancers.

“The aim is to bring closer the knowledge of our ancestors about the human body, expressed through these ceramic vessels that we call the ‘Erotic Huacos,’” said Larco Museum Director Ulla Holmquist.

The exhibit came in the wake of devastating figures regarding access to healthcare during the global COVID-19 pandemic. When the annual average of 8,700 male cancer diagnoses in Peru surpassed 10,000 in 2021, health officials perked up.

The museum partnered with the League Against Cancer, a private company that reported that 45 per cent of those diagnosed cases were too advanced to be cured.

“Timely detection of cancer of the external genitalia in men, both the penis and testicles, is very low,” said Giselle Grillo from the League Against Cancer. “Many do not know how to explore their genitals, what palpation is. With this, we give an early diagnosis.”

The men were told to feel for bumps, smooth or rough spots, and other abnormalities in the ancient art in an effort to model how to undertake a proper self-examination.

The League Against Cancer explained that men should wear gloves before lubricating one finger and then inserting it into the rectum to check for soft or hard bumps around the prostate when performing a personal screening. While the organisation is using the artwork of the Moche culture to promote as much, they’ve also posted instructions online.

The Moche culture thrived in northern Peru from about 150 C.E. through the end of the eighth century and established its capital near present-day Moche in Trujillo. With agriculture as its foundation, the civilization constructed an impressive irrigation network to nurture its crops.

Perhaps most fascinating was their art, which was primarily erotic.

The Moche culture depicted all sorts of activities in their colourful murals and handcrafted ceramics. From fishing and hunting to war and human sacrifice, their iconographies reflected their interests. However, their “huacos,” a pre-Columbian term for handcrafted ceramics, were focused on sex.

As published in the American Anthropologist journal, a 2004 study noted at least 500 huacos were sexually themed. Curiously, most of these depicted heterosexual anal sex and rarely showed vaginal penetration. Scholars believe sex symbolized circulation and flow to the Moche and honored their successful irrigation techniques, the basis of their agricultural society. Historians also posited that the loss of fluids from the human body represented the disappearance of water from the land.

Mochica art has indeed shown dying warriors bleeding from the nose or people having their eyes torn out by predators — and would catch the attention of cancer-prevention officials 1300 years later.

José Medina, a urologist with League Against Cancer, also wanted to “call on the population to undergo annual medical examinations in order to have a timely diagnosis.”

He said that self-diagnosis is only a first step that will increase early detection, and he was hopeful that the new partnership would raise awareness through its novelty.

Chimú wooden litter bearer found in Peru

Archaeologists have discovered a wooden sculpture depicting a litter bearer of a ruler of the Chimú culture at the Chan Chan archaeological site on the outskirts of Trujillo, northwestern Peru.

The sculpture has not been absolutely dated yet, but the style indicates it is early Chimú, between 850 and 1,470 years old, making it one of the oldest sculptures found at the site. Despite its advanced age, it is in excellent condition, complete with its original bright paint.

The piece was unearthed during conservation work on the Huaca Takaynamo, a pyramidal structure in the north of the ancient complex. The sculpture is 18.5 inches long and just over six inches wide and depicts a male figure with bent arms and straight legs.

The face is oval in shape and flat with the exception of a veritable sundial of the nose that juts upwards. It is painted red. The eyes are almond-shaped and filled in with a black resin originally used as an adhesive for mother-of-pearl inlays that are now lost. The curved, scooped ears have a layer of the same black resin.

The right arm is bent upwards at the elbow, cleaving close to the body. The hand is at shoulder height, palm facing the torso.

The left arm bends 90 degrees at the elbow with the hand outstretched in front of the torso. The chest, arms and hands were also painted red.

He wears a trapezoidal cap and a triangular skirt. The cap is decorated with seven vertical bands in alternating light and dark colours, with a dark horizontal band across the forehead.

The skirt has a dark triangle in the middle and the edge is decorated with rectangular bands similar to the ones on the cap.

Next to the sculpture, archaeologists discovered nectandra seeds — known to have been used for ritual purposes in pre-Hispanic Peru — that were strung on a thread to wear as a necklace.

Underneath the figure was a small black bag stitched with decorative brown and white thread.

Archaeologist Arturo Paredes Núñez, head of the Pecach Research, Conservation and Enhancement Unit, pointed out the characteristics of this finding. “Chimú wood carvings or sculptures are fixed or mobile. The former are documented at the entrance to some walled complexes of Chan Chan, from an uncarved segment that when buried, fixes the carved portion of the element to the ground. The mobile sculpture lacks such an element and has frequently been documented in some huacas,” he said.

The Huaca Takaynamo is north of the main complex of Chan Chan. It is being excavated as part of a wider project of conservation and study to learn more about the peripheral buildings in the ancient city and how to preserve them for eventual display. The litter bearer sculpture is key evidence that the Huaca had a ceremonial function.

Archaeologists unearth 3,800-year-old wall relief in Peru

Wall carvings were found in what was once a fishing city of the Caral civilization, the oldest in the Americas. The relief is thought to symbolize a period of drought and famine brought on by climate change.

Archaeologists discovered an ancient wall relief in Peru, belonging to the oldest civilizations in the Americas, news agency Andina reported on Thursday. The wall is approximately 3,800 years old and portrays snakes and human heads.

One meter (3.2 feet) high and 2.8 meters long, the wall relief was discovered in the sea-side archaeological site of Vichama, 110 kilometres (68 miles) north of Peru’s capital, Lima.

The Vichama site is one of the excavation points of the recently discovered Caral civilization, also known as Norte Chico, and has been explored by archaeologists since 2007.

The Caral civilization is 5,000 years old, making it the oldest civilization in the Americas, and flourished at the same time as the thriving Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Chinese civilizations. The Caral people lived in the Supe Valley along the north-central coast of Peru.

Dating back to 1800 and 3500 B.C., Vichama is thought to have been a fishing community and one of the Caral peoples’ various cities. The wall was made of adobe, a clay-like material from which bricks are made and was located at the entry point of a ceremonial hall.

Documenting climate change

The wall relief shows four human heads, side by side, their eyes closed, with two snakes passing between and around them. The snakes point their heads to what appears to be a humanoid seed symbol that is digging into the soil.

Archaeologist Ruth Shady, who oversees the site and announced the discovery, hypothesized that the serpents represent a water deity that irrigates the earth and makes seeds grow.

READ ALSO: CARAL: THE OLDEST CIVILIZATION IN THE AMERICAS

Shady said the relief was likely done towards the end of a drought and famine that the Caral civilization experienced. Other reliefs discovered nearby showed emaciated humans.

Archaeologists believe that the relief discovery reinforces the notion that these early humans were attempting to depict the difficulties they faced due to climate change and water scarcity, which had a large impact on their agricultural production.

The Caral excavation site has so far unearthed the ruins of 22 buildings in a 25-hectare space, dating back to between 1800 and 1500 B.C.

The face of a 4,500-year-old mummy found in Peru was digitally reconstructed

Last year, archaeologists came across a 4,500-year-old mummy of a woman at Aspero, in Peru – and she was given the moniker of the ‘Lady with the Four Brooches’. Now to put things into perspective, this ‘new world’ discovery is almost as old as the Great Pyramid of Giza, thus shedding light on the intricacy of the pre-Columbian civilizations of America.

And now, a collaborative effort from researchers (at Caral Archaeological Zone or ZAC and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University or UIGV) has resulted in the reconstruction of the face of the ‘Lady with the Four Brooches’, with the incredible recreation being unveiled at the Ministry of Culture in Lima, on 11th October.

The reconstructed visage represents a middle-aged woman (40-50 years old and around 5 ft tall) with simple features and a benign, almost-affectionate bearing. However, there was more to this ancient lady than her gentle face suggests. According to Dr Ruth Shady, director of ZAC –

It’s exciting to see the computer-generated 3D image of a person who we believe was a noblewoman with important social standing and authority in the ancient Caral civilization. Her discovery refers to the four brooches or ‘cuatro tupus’ carved from animal bones and shaped like monkeys and birds, that were found pinned to the fabric covering her remains. We know that these ornamental fasteners were used by women of prestige in traditional societies as symbols of their affluent social status. By revealing this ancient female’s face, we can throw some light on an intricate culture that supported gender equality, allowing both men and women to hold, political, religious and leadership roles.

 Now as for this reconstruction, the process was not without its fair share of hiccups. For starters, the researchers had to deal with a missing eye. Furthermore, the mummy’s cranium was also severely deformed, possibly due to intentional ritual cranial distortions followed by some ancient Andean civilizations (for reasons still unknown). In any case, the scientists could figure out other aberrations, like three fractures on her skull that might have been caused by a fall.

Brazilian 3D computer graphic artist, Cicero Moraes, who was a part of the digital reconstruction process said –

There was a dark mass obscuring the skull’s left eye socket which was partly caused by decaying body tissues and remnants of the funeral blanket covering the corpse. Photogrammetry can only take 3D photographic scans of the outside of the object, so I digitized the skull as it was and found an ingenious way to fill in the gap. I simply mirrored the right eye orbit and copied it to the left side. I was able to soften the jawline by giving it a more feminine pointed chin.

He also talked about how the artists recreated the various facial features complemented by the different density parameters –

Working with a disfigured skull is always a challenge as there is very little data to use as a reference. I compared the ‘Lady’s’ skull with a modern woman of compatible ancestry and age. By overlapping the structures, you could see how the jaw on the ancient skull was more robust and square compared to the recent skull. I reconstructed the face by working with the anatomical distortion while referencing the modern skull. I also used data tables which give the standard density of skin tissue, muscles and fat on various sections of the head.

Coming to the historical scope of the ‘Lady with the Four Brooches’, the find hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of 2016, pertained to an entombed body discovered inside a burial chamber in the Huaca of the Idols.

This fascinating structure entails one of the many pyramid-shaped buildings in the region designed with overlapping platforms and a central staircase (pictured below).

The deceased woman was flanked by objects like broaches with animal-shaped etchings, a necklace made of sea shells, and a pendant of Spondylus (bivalve molluscs). These jewellery items allude to her affluent social status, while also hinting at how high-end commodities and items were possibly traded between the coastal and inland settlements in pre-Columbian Peru.

Interestingly enough, the site of coastal Aspero in itself is only 14 miles away from inland Caral (or Caral-Supe), possibly the oldest known city in the Americas. This obviously brings us to the question – who were these ancient inhabitants of Peru who built impressive monuments and pyramids that were contemporary to their Egyptian counterparts? Well, the answer points to the so-called Norte Chico civilization, a factional conglomeration of around 30 major population centres, which was established along the region of north-central coastal Peru.

The Norte Chico thrived from 3500-1800 BC, thus making them the oldest known civilization in the Americas. And of the major cities (or probably the biggest one) of this conglomeration was Caral, a massive urban sprawl that covered 60 hectares of area, and was home to numerous temple complexes, and earthen mounds (pyramids), circular plazas and even a geoglyph.

The main temple compound among these impressive architectural feats relates to the Templo Mayor, a massive complex encompassing an area of 150 m (492 ft) in length and 110 m (360 ft) in width (with an average height of 28 m or 92 ft), which is more than equivalent of three American football fields! Oddly enough, the commercial and economic aptitude required for these ambitious constructional endeavours was (probably) not fueled by wars and conquests on the part of the political elite. In that regard, much like the ancient Jomon people of Japan, the Norte Chico culture was not predisposed toward violence, as evidenced by the lack of warfare-based weapons, trauma-bearing skeletons and even human sacrifices (which possibly occurred in very rare instances).

In any case, there is still much to know about the Norte Chico (Caral) civilization of ancient Peru and the inter-relation between the coastal towns (like Aspero) and the inland cities (like Caral). Furthermore, there is also the angle of how women could achieve higher statuses within the society – as evidenced by this mummy in question. And lastly, a baffling element accompanies the architectural feats of the advanced civilization, and it pertains to how the Norte Chico didn’t dabble in either visual art or ceramic-based pottery.

500-Year-Old Tomb Found in Peru

Scientists have unearthed an Inca-era tomb under a home in the heart of Peru’s capital, Lima, a burial believed to hold remains wrapped in cloth alongside ceramics and fine ornaments.

The lead archaeologist, Julio Abanto, told Reuters the 500-year-old tomb contained “multiple funerary bundles” tightly wrapped in cloth.

He said those entombed were probably from the elite of Ruricancho society, a culture that once populated present-day Lima before the powerful Inca came to rule a sprawling empire across the length of western South America in the 1400s.

Famed for their gold and sophisticated constructions, including the mountaintop royal retreat of Machu Picchu, the Inca were defeated by Spanish invaders in 1532.

Hipolito Tica, the owner of the house in Lima, said he was overcome with emotion at the surprise find. “It’s amazing. I really have no other words to describe it,” he said, expressing a hope that future generations in the working-class San Juan de Lurigancho neighbourhood would better appreciate the rich history all around them.

Excavations began in May after Tica’s building plans for his property triggered a required archaeological survey. The district of Lima is known for hundreds of past archaeological finds from cultures that developed before and after the Inca.

Mysterious Pyramids In The Amazon, Spotted By NASA Satellite In 1976

In 1976, NASA’s Landsat Satellite was orbiting Earth when it photographed mysterious dots in southeast Peru, at 71 degrees, 30 minutes west longitude in the Madre de Dios region of the Amazon.

The satellite photograph, archived under number C-S11-32W071-03 showed a mysterious set of formations, in the middle of Peru’s southeastern jungle.

The satellite image revealed structures symmetrically spaced and uniform in shape, looking like a series of eight or more pyramids, in at least four rows of two.

The curious formation became known as the Pyramids of Paratoari, or as many authors would later call them, The Dots of Peru, or the Pyramids of Pantiacolla.

The satellite image sent explorers, authors, and researchers into a frenzy as to what the curious structures are. The ‘pyramids’ became quite popular, especially since it is believed that the lost city of Paititi was located somewhere in that area.

The president of the South American Explorers Club, Don Montague wrote about the enigmatic structures in an article published in the South American Explorer Journal, where he described them as nothing other than odd geological formations.

However, many people who saw the satellite image were not convinced by Montague’s writing.

Proponents of the theory that the structure are not geological formations but in fact, manmade structures argue that the Pyramids were most likely built by a long-lost ancient civilization that inhabited the Amazonian rainforest thousands of years ago.

The alleged structure, many argue, has been devoured by the surrounding rainforest and is covered with thousands of years of vegetation.

Exploring The Pyramids

Despite the fact that the alleged pyramids’ structures are located in a remote part of the Amazonian rainforest, a number of expeditions have been mounted to explore, not only the alleged pyramids but the region in search of the lost city of Paititi.

The lost city of Paititi is a legendary ancient Incan metropolis, said to be located somewhere east of the Andes, within the dense and remote rainforests of southeast Peru, northern Bolivia or southwest Brazil.

Numerous expeditions to search for the lost city of Paititi were established, and some of them even searched for the alleged pyramids of Paratoari.

Between 1984-2011 various expeditions were led by Gregory Deyermenjian, a member of the explorer’s club and a Peruvian explorer.

These included the documentation of Incan remains in Mameria, the exploration and documentation of the petroglyphs at Pusharo, the exploration, and documentation of Manu’s Pyramids of Paratoari, and others.

Deyermenjian had discovered plenty of evidence of ancient Inca inhabitance in the area, including petroglyphs, paved roads, platforms, and plazas, but he did not find conclusive evidence that the mysterious structures spotted by NASA’s Landsat satellite were man-made structures.

Deyermenjian argued that the structures were natural sandstone formations known as truncated ridge spurs, which can take the form of natural pyramids.

Deyermenjian has since, in 1999 and 2006, seen and photographed various very similar sites in the area of the Río Timpía, with intriguingly pyramidal-shaped huge natural formations.

“In 1996, still without a helicopter, we again ensconced ourselves within the steamy lower jungles of Manu, in an area just to the south of Pusharo, to reach and make the first definitive examination of the “Pyramids of Paratoari,” eight apparently evenly spaced and unnaturally symmetrical hillocks which had caused a flurry of speculation as to their origin and relation to Paititi since having been spotted on a NASA satellite photograph twenty years before…”

But people were still amazed by the formations.

In 2001, French explorer Thierry Jamin investigated the site of Pantiacolla and is said to have investigated the pyramids, concluding that they are in fact natural formations. However, Jamin discovered several Inca artefacts in the same area.

In 2011, a British expedition to investigate the Pyramids of Paratoari with Kenneth Gawne, Lewis Knight, Ken Halfpenny, I. Gardiner and Darwin Moscoso as part of the documentary “The Secret of the Incas” took place.

Archaeologists Find Massive Underground World Belonging To A Long Lost Civilization In Peru

Researchers in Peru have discovered a complex underground world belonging to the ancient Chavín culture that has been identified as burial chambers that date back thousands of years.

The culture developed in the northern Andean highlands of Peru between 1,300 and 550 BC. The Chavín extended its influence to other civilizations along the coast.

The Ancient Chavin civilization developed advanced knowledge not only in metallurgy, but in soldering, and temperature control. The ancient Chavin used early techniques to develop refined gold work.

Not, researchers have discovered galleries, ceramics and even a place where this civilization carried out burials, located beneath the surface. They say it’s the most important archaeological discovery made in the last 50 years.

Since June of 2018, a team of archaeologists has unearthed three new galleries in an area adjacent to the circular plaza of Chavín. In the place, they have found remarkable pieces of ceramics, utensils and intact human burials.

According to an American anthropologist and archaeologist John Rick, in charge of the Archaeological and Conservation Research Program of Chavín, the three discovered galleries come from the late period of this civilization that developed between 1,300 and 550 BC.

“What these galleries show is that Chavín has a much larger underground world than we think,” said Rick.

Inside one of these underground galleries, archaeologists discovered artefacts that belonged to the later Huaraz culture.

These successive occupations, found at different levels in the archaeological complex demonstrate the cultural and religious importance that Chavin had in the central highlands for centuries.

The project’s specialists used small robots with built-in micro-cameras to carry out the explorations. These machines – designed on-site by engineers from Stanford University – entered very small areas and discovered cavities in the Chavin labyrinths, where pottery was preserved.

Chavin de Huantar was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. So far 35 interconnected underground passageways have been found at the site, Peru’s culture ministry said.