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The
Pachacamac deity, which originated along the central coast,
survived the Inca and Spanish Conquests. Inca mythology relates
that the ancient deity was the god of fire and the offspring
of the sun deity, the fountain of youth whose strength was
linked to the earthquakes. With the arrival of Christianity,
it was later bound up with the Christ of Pachacamilla, the
painting known as the Lord of Miracles.
The area was first settled in 200 BC, but the shrine's construction
did not get underway until the rise of the Lima culture (300-400
AD), where the Urpiwachak temple was built in the western
sector and the Adobitos Complex, a set of large-scale constructions
featuring complex architectural techniques.
Four hundred years before the Incas, the Ishmay culture developed
a major ceremonial center, featuring streets, dozens of temples
fitted with ramps and the Painted Temple, evidence of their
sense of religious urbanism. When the Incas overran the valley
in the fourteenth century, they adapted the existing constructions
to their administrative needs, stripping the citadel of its
sacred status and banishing the oracle to oblivion. The Incas
built the Temple of the Sun, the Acllahuasi (House of the
Virgins of the Sun), the Pilgrims' Plaza and other palaces
whose painstaking reconstruction gives visitors an idea of
what the site looked like 500 years ago.
The Pachacamac shrine is today an archaeological zone in the
department of Lima doted with an on-site museum and natural
protected areas, such as the carob forest and lake. A tour
of the site is to go back in time through the history of the
Lurín River Valley and the central coast, the burial
sites and temples. Visitors can admire the age-old ability
of the ancient Peruvians to live alongside nature. |
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