Cahuachi

Adobe pyramid at Cahuachi

Cahuachi, in Peru, was a major ceremonial center of the Nazca culture, based from 1 CE to about 500 CE in the coastal area of the Central Andes. It overlooked some of the Nazca lines. The Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici has been excavating at the site for the past few decades . The site contains over 40 mounds topped with adobe structures. The huge architectural complex covers 0.6 sq. miles (1.5 km²). The American archeologist Helaine Silverman has also conducted long term, multi-stage research and written about the full context of Nazca society at Cahuachi, published in a lengthy study in 1993.

Scholars once thought the site was the capital of the Nazca state but have determined that the permanent population was quite small. They believe that it was a pilgrimage center, whose population increased greatly in relation to major ceremonial events. New research has suggested that 40 of the mounds were natural hills modified to appear as artificial constructions. Support for the pilgrimage theory comes from archaeological evidence of sparse population at Cahuachi, the spatial patterning of the site, and ethnographic evidence from the Virgin of Yauca pilgrimage in the nearby Ica Valley (Silverman 1994).

Looting is the greatest problem facing the site today. Most of the burial sites surrounding Cahuachi were not known until recently and are tempting targets for looters.

References

• Helaine Silverman, Cahuachi in the Ancient Nasca World, University of Iowa Press, 1993.
• Helaine Silverman, The Archaeological Identification of an Ancient Peruvian Pilgrimage Center, World Archaeology. Vol. 26, No. 1, 1994: 1-18.
• Giuseppe Orefici, Nasca: Hipótesis y Evidencias de su Desarrollo Cultural. Lima: Centro Italiano Studi e Ricerche Archelolgiche Precolombiane. 2003.

External links

• Tour in Cahuachi, Great Nazca Tours