Cahuachi
Sign in to savethumb|800px|center|Adobe pyramids at Cahuachi Cahuachi, in Peru, was a major ceremonial center of the Nazca culture, based from about in the coastal area of Peru's central Andes. It overlooked some of the Nazca lines. The Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici excavated at the site for the past few decades. The site contains over 40 mounds topped with adobe structures. The huge architectural complex covers (1.5 km²) at 365 meters above sea level. The American archeologist Helaine Silverman has also conducted long term, multi-stage research and written about the full context of N
Article
23 sectionsContents
- Geographic and environmental overview
- History of research at Cahuachi
- Chronology and Nasca style pottery
- Agriculture and economy
- Agriculture – edible food materials present
- Agriculture – ritual food materials present
- Economy – trade
- Economy: Craft specialization and production
- Economy – textiles
- Economy – pottery
- Architecture and artifacts
- Nasca cult society and Cahuachi
- Religion and ideology
- Death
- Burials
- Trophy heads
- Warfare and violence
- Nasca iconography
- Decline of Cahuachi
- Notes
- Citations
- Sources
- Further reading
thumb|800px|center|Adobe pyramids at Cahuachi Cahuachi, in Peru, was a major ceremonial center of the Nazca culture, based from about in the coastal area of Peru's central Andes. It overlooked some of the Nazca lines. The Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici excavated at the site for the past few decades. The site contains over 40 mounds topped with adobe structures. The huge architectural complex covers (1.5 km²) at 365 meters above sea level. 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 preceding and during 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.