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<< Other Photo Pages >> Chotuna-Chornancap - Ancient Temple in Peru

Submitted by bat400 on Thursday, 15 September 2016  Page Views: 28274

Multi-periodSite Name: Chotuna-Chornancap Alternative Name: Chot
Country: Peru Type: Ancient Temple
Nearest Town: Lambayeque
Latitude: 6.7206S  Longitude: 79.9531W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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bat400 visited on 8th Sep 2018 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 3

Chotuna-Chornancap
Chotuna-Chornancap submitted by bat400 : Depiction of Naymlap arriving at Chotuna-Chornancap on his balsa raft. Naymlap, gold plaque, Chimu 1000-1450 A.D. Photo by wikipedian user: Paname-IV, copyright holder Date: 31 Dec 2010 Source: Lombards Museum. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Site in Peru (Vote or comment on this photo)
A complex of flat-topped adobe Pyramids, tombs, and temples in Lambayeque, Peru. The Huaca Chotuna brick pyramid is part of a complex that includes walled compounds, and adobe buildings with plastered walls that show the remains of frescos and bas reliefs of stylized figures. Another pyramid on the site, Huaca Norta, contained sacrificial victims.

The origins of the complex date to the Sican (or Lambayeque) culture of about 900 CE.
The legendary figure of Naylamp, who is supposed to have come from the sea, floating on a balsa raft, is associated with the pyramid. He is described variously as the builder of the pyramid, as having been buried there, or both.

The site was also used by the later cultures of the Chimu and Inca. A museum has opened at the site and houses both artifacts and human remains of sacrificial victims found buried within structure at the complex.
The location given is general for the site.

Note: Archaeologists find ancient tombs in Peru hinting at human sacrifice, see the most recent comment on our page
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sculptured reliefs
sculptured reliefs
me at the chotuna musuem
huaca chotuna
sculpted relief
i will CRUSH you

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"Chotuna-Chornancap" | Login/Create an Account | 11 News and Comments
  
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Archaeologists find ancient tombs in Peru hinting at human sacrifice by davidmorgan on Saturday, 10 September 2016
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Researchers at the northern coastal site of Chotuna-Chornancap – a seat of power for three cultures – are studying remains, including two footless children.

Archaeologists in Peru have found more than a dozen tombs suggesting human sacrifice at sprawling ruins on the northern coast, a seat of power for three ancient cultures and the possible center of a pre-Inca legend.

At Chotuna-Chornancap, a coastal ruin complex in the arid valleys far north of Lima, archaeologists with Peru’s ministry of culture found more than 17 graves dating to at least the 15th century.

“There is at least one fairly high-status tomb,” said Haagen Klaus, a bioarchaeologist at George Mason University has worked at Chotuna-Chornancap before. Klaus told the Guardian that he hopes to analyze the new finds, discovered by the ruins of a temple, to confirm whether the victims were sacrificed.

“It’s not unusual that sacrifices are made to those individuals, sometimes during the funeral or even years or generations afterward,” he said. “But we can see that a number of the individuals that were buried were children – and that does fit into the larger pattern of ritual sacrifice.”

Six children were found in paired graves to the north, east and west of the temple, and two were footless, as though amputated, the lead archaeologist, Carlos Wester, said in a statement. The placement led the researchers to speculate that the children had been sacrificed as ceremonial “guardians” of tombs. The other graves contained men and women buried supine, and some of the bones showed damage like that of other sacrifice victims from the era.

At the center of the tombs, the archaeologists found a grave with various offerings, including two clay pots, a sculpture of a smiling man and a vessel carved into the shape of a coquero – a person chewing coca leaves. Some of the offerings resembled objects in a large, colorful temple mural, perhaps 700 years old, where anthropomorphized bird warriors march with “what look like severed human heads and vegetable bundles”, Klaus said.

“We study sacrifice not for the gruesome details but because rituals like this tend to be reflections of culture, history, society,” he said. “They provide living windows into rituals that were entwined with economics and politics.”

So far, more than 50 sacrifice victims have been found at Chotuna-Chornancap, spanning hundreds of years and at least three civilizations.

Read more at The Guardian
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The Pluvial Priestess from Peru by Andy B on Sunday, 21 October 2012
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There is a good write-up of the finds here at

Over the past few weeks there have been numerous articles and press releases regarding a tomb found in Peru. Each week it seems they find out something new and interesting about this site. The tomb is located on the Pacific Coast of Peru, about 13 miles inland near the modern city of Chiclayo. It is associated with the Lambayeque or Sicán culture, and is dated to the later period, approximately 1200-1350 CE.

The find was part of the Chotuna-Chornancap archaeological project, and is being run by Carlos Wester La Torre, head of the excavation and director of the Brüning National Archaeological Museum. Since the discovery of the tomb almost 6 months ago, it has continued to reveal amazing finds including a priestess and a possible relationship to a rain deity.

More, with photos and diagrams at
http://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/the-pluvial-priestess-from-peru
and lots more photos here
http://ilfattostorico.com/2012/07/14/unaltra-tomba-sican-a-chotuna-chornancap
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Ancient Tomb Built to Flood—Sheds Light on Peru Water Cult? by davidmorgan on Monday, 17 September 2012
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Archaeologists in Peru thought they had discovered something special when they uncovered the tomb of a pre-Inca priestess and eight other corpses in 2011. But an even bigger find was right beneath their feet.

Continuing their search for artifacts a year later, the team dug beneath the priestess, uncovering a basement tomb they believe was built by an ancient water cult and meant to flood.

"This is a very valuable finding," said Carlos Wester La Torre, head of the excavation and director of the Brüning National Archaeological Museum in the Lambayeque region—a region named after the little-known culture that built the stacked tomb. "The amount of information of this funerary complex is very important, because it changes [what we know of] the political and religious structures of the Andean region."

The nearly 800-year-old basement burial sheds light on complex Lambayeque social structures and on the worship of water in the culture.

Four sets of waterlogged human remains were found in the flooded tomb, one adorned with pearl and shell beads—indicators of wealth or status. The other three corpses likely were intended to accompany the body into the next world.

The faces of both elite individuals, in the lower and upper tombs, were covered with copper sheets, and wore earspools bearing similar, wavelike designs.

While other saturated burial sites have been discovered in the region, this is the first documented discovery of a stacked grave holding revered people, according to archaeologist Izumi Shimada, a Lambayeque expert at Southern Illinois University who was not part of the excavation team.

More at National Geographic.
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Human Sacrifice Victims at Chotuna-Chornancap: Multidimensional Reconstruction by Andy B on Sunday, 01 April 2012
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Human Sacrifice Victims at Chotuna-Chornancap: Multidimensional Reconstruction of Ritual Violence in the Late Pre-Hispanic Lambayeque Valley A paper by Haagen Klaus

http://uvu.academia.edu/HaagenKlaus/Papers/1132618/Human_Sacrifice_Victims_at_Chotuna-Chornancap_Multidimensional_Reconstruction_of_Ritual_Violence_in_the_Late_Pre-Hispanic_Lambayeque_Valley

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Archaeologist investigates legend of mythical ruler of ancient Peru by davidmorgan on Sunday, 01 April 2012
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Long before the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1530 and brought with them a written language with which to record history, legends about ancient Peru were passed down through generations by oral “historians” who were trained to flawlessly recount these stories of mythical heroes and villains.

Among the most colorful of these stories was the legend of Naymlap, the fearless founder of a centuries-old dynasty that supposedly ruled the Lambayeque Valley in northern Peru.

As the legend goes, Naymlap arrived with a vast fleet of balsa rafts carrying an entourage that included a chief wife and many concubines. He also brought with him an idol made of green stone, and he built a palace where it was installed. In his court were a trumpeter who blew through shells much prized by the Indians; a servant who scattered the dust of pulverized seashells on the ground where Naymlap tread; and servants who tended his every need, from an official bather to the keeper of his feathered shirts.

Throughout Naymlap’s long reign, the tale continued, people enjoyed peace until his death, kept secret by his attendants who — fearing that his followers would find out their venerated leader had succumbed to this human fate — buried him in the same room where he had lived. Saddened by his mysterious disappearance, many of his followers abandoned their homes to find him.

The ancient search for Naymlap was, in one sense, re-launched in modern times by an internationally known UCLA archaeologist who set out in 1980 to determine whether the story could actually have occurred in real life by excavating two adjacent sites in the Lambayeque Valley: Chotuna and Chornancap.

Christopher Donnan’s revelations about the legend and his findings at the two sites are detailed in a new 268-page book that was just published by the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, “Chotuna and Chornancap: Excavating an Ancient Peruvian Legend.”

“We set out to see if we could test the validity of the legend through archaeological excavation,” explained Donnan, an emeritus anthropology professor who has made major discoveries of tombs and other sites important to an ancient civilization in Peru, the Moche, throughout his 40-plus-year career as an archaeologist. “My hope was that we might be able to suggest that Naymlap was Moche, my main field of interest. “

But after three field seasons at the sites, not one fragment of Moche pottery had been unearthed. Instead, Donnan and his UCLA team of students and fellow archaeologists found a wealth of ceramics, burials, colorful wall murals and other materials in an area that once was the location of domestic dwellings, pyramids, palace complexes, walled enclosures and a room-filled site they dubbed the “Artisans Quadrangle,” a place where metalworking took place.

In other words, the archaeologist said, “What we found was perfectly in keeping with the legend.”

Donnan said that the legend that had so fascinated him for years had been recorded for the first in the written word by Miguel Cabello de Balboa in 1586, a little more than 50 years after the Spanish conquered the Inca Empire and developed colonial Peru.

“It’s a wonderful story,” said Donnan of the legend that ends nine generations later with the fall of Fempellec, the last in the line of Naymlap’s successors. Fempellec apparently tried to move the green idol out of the palace but was intercepted by the devil, who appeared to him in the form of a beautiful seductress. With the consummation of their union, a terrible rain began to fall, flooding the valley for 30 days, followed by a year of famine and sterility. Irate vassals captured Fempellec, tied his feet and hands, and threw him into the Pacific Ocean, bringing to a close the dynasty that Naymlap founded.

Captivated by the legend and tantalized by the possibility that oral traditions have some historic validity, Donnan shared hi

Read the rest of this post...
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Tomb of Peru's Sican culture may house Royal Executioner by bat400 on Saturday, 23 July 2011
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Archaeologists in Peru have discovered the tomb of a lord of the Lambayeque culture, believed to have been an executioner due to the three ceremonial knives found buried with him.

Carlos Wester, director of the Bruning Museum in Lambayeque and one of the tomb's discoverers, told AFP the person buried there was most likely in charge of human sacrifice.

"We found the perfectly preserved tomb of a sacrificer of the Lambayeque culture, with copper machetes and human offerings laid around them," Wester told the news agency.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com. Read more at their website.
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Under Naylamp's Temple - A Pyramid in Peru. by bat400 on Monday, 01 February 2010
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Submitted by coldrum ---

A thousand-year-old temple complex (including a tomb with human sacrifice victims, shown in a digital illustration) has been found under the windswept dunes of northwestern Peru, archaeologists say.

The discovery of the complex, excavated near the city of Chiclayo (map) between 2006 and late 2009, has injected a dose of reality into the legend of Naylamp, the god who supposedly founded the pre-Inca Lambayeque civilization in the eighth century A.D., following the collapse of the Moche civilization.

That's because evidence at the Chotuna-Chornancap archaeological site indicates the temple complex may have belonged to people claiming to have descended from Naylamp—suggesting for the first time that these supposed descendants existed in the flesh.

The sophisticated Lambayeque culture, also known as the Sicán, were best known as skilled irrigation engineers until being conquered in A.D. 1375 by the Chimú, a civilization also based along Peru's arid northern coast.

Within the newfound temple complex is a pyramid-shaped tomb, called Huaca Norte, which was filled with the skeletons of 33 women.
"Women are traditionally associated with fertility," La Torre said. "They are offered in religious ceremonies in return for more fertility [and other beneficial events]—like rain, for instance."



For more, and photographs and figures, see National Geographic.
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Polychrome mural found in archaeological complex of Chotuna, Peru by bat400 on Friday, 02 October 2009
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Submitted by coldrum ---

A polychrome mural was found in the facade of a ceremonial temple located in the northern part of the Chotuna archaeological complex, 10 miles west of Lambayeque city, which features friezes with circular designs and the anthropomorphic wave, icon of Lambayeque’s culture.

The religious building dates from 9th and 10th centuries AD, corresponding to the Lambayeque culture, said the leader of excavations at the Chotuna-Chornancap camp, Carlos Wester, who presented the findings today.

According to Wester, a platform emerged only after the systematic removal of a dune higher than 15 meters.

Evidences of polychrome surfaces -with red and cream colored chess designs- were found at the north facing top level of this platform.
"These were the first signs of the mural’s discovery, which encouraged us to continue excavations where, months later, we could find a structure featuring friezes with circular designs," he said.

Last year, a group of 11 skeletons of sacrificed women was discovered in the Huaca Norte, located at the archeological complex of Huaca Chotuna.



For more, see andina.com.
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Peru mummies 'were human sacrifices' by bat400 on Friday, 24 July 2009
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Submitted by coldrum ---

The head of a team of archaeologists examining 33 mummies found in Peru says the bodies were human sacrifices.

Utah University professor Haagen Klaus is an expert in bio-archaeology and has been analysing and examining the human remains found in 2007 at the Chotuna Huaca, a site located north east of Chiclayo.
"(The) majority of them were sacrificed using a very sharp bladed instrument, probably a copper or bronze tummy knife. And for the majority there are a several combinations, complex set of variations on cutting of the throat, " Mr Klaus said.
Sacrifices were made "to make sure that there would still be rain and agricultural fertility", Klaus explained.

What made the discovery so unusual in the eyes of the experts was that most of the mummies were females.

"The blood sacrifice of a large group of women is something that is very, very unusual, it is the first time we have ever seen this", Mr Klaus said.

In fact, 30 of the 33 bodies were female and according to Klaus they were all very young when they were sacrificed.The majority hadn't reached 15-years-old and some of the mummies were children no older than nine.

In an excellent state of conservation, many still with their hair and teeth intact, the mummies have provided endless study material for Klaus.
He was able to extract DNA, learn about the illnesses they had, their diets, their ages, causes of death and even possible kinships among the mummies.



For more, see ">SBS.com.
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