The Role of Pachacamac and Castillo de Huarmey in the Wari World: A Comparison

Summary

This is an abstract from the "A Decade of Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavations since 2005 at Pachacamac (Lurin Valley) near Lima and since 2010 at Castillo de Huarmey (Huarmey Valley) have provided important new evidence about the character and chronology of these two sites, considered by Menzel to be religious and political centers of the Wari Empire. Both sites were contemporaneous, approximately AD 800–1100, and share the cosmopolitan culture typical of the Middle Horizon. However, only in the case of Castillo de Huarmey, through the existence of the palace structure, the necropolis with three groups of mausoleums, and the workshops run by skilled foreign artisans, is there clear evidence to indicate that it was a regional capital of the empire. The evidence from Pachacamac is much more modest compared to Castillo and the iconography of the famous wooden idol suggests that the artisans who carved it and the ideas came to Lurin from the north.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Decade of Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36689.0