Peru Temple, Mural Hints at Complexity
Submitted by coldrum on Tuesday, 04 December 2007 Page Views: 2039
Pre-ContactCountry: Peru The sophisticated design and colorful artwork found in a 4,000-year-old temple unearthed near Peru's northern desert coast suggests that early civilization here was more complex than originally thought.Ventarron, a 7,000-square-foot site — a bit larger than a basketball court — with painted walls and a white-and-red mural of a deer hunt, points to an "advanced civilization," said the lead archaeologist who excavated the site.
"We have the use of a construction material that is not primitive," Walter Alva, a prominent Peruvian archaeologist who headed the government-funded dig, said of the temple's mud bricks, which were made from local river sediments instead of rocks.
The pre-Incan structure's "harmonious" design is typical of later temples and demonstrates remarkable precision: it points due north, Alva said told The Associated Press by telephone.
Alva, who led one of Peru's most famous archaeological digs uncovering the Moche Lords of Sipan tombs in the late 1980s, said results from carbon dating conducted in the U.S. show that the Ventarron temple was constructed 4,000 years ago.
Fragments of paint found on the walls and an almost completely intact inner mural show the civilization had "the concept of decoration," Alva said.
"This discovery once again supports the rising of complexity early in Peru," said Kit Nelson, a Tulane University archaeology professor who specializes in early desert-dwelling cultures. The find "provides new early dates for the decorating of public architecture and the use of adobe bricks."
More at AP.
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