PERU
October, 2008 – December, 2008

Huaca Pucllana: A Pyramid Made out of Mud
October 7th, 2008 by Cyrus

From our apartment you can see a big mound of dirt, but if you get closer you will see a big pyramid. It is made of adobe bricks stacked vertically. It sort of looks like a bookshelf. It was made like that to absorb shocks from earthquakes. It was made by the Lima people between 200 and 700 A.D. The Lima people named it Pucllana which is from a language named Quechua. 

The pyramid was made for honoring the gods. It was built about 2 kilometers (a little over a mile) from the ocean, and you can see the ocean from the top. One of their gods was a two-headed shark which represented the ocean. The Lima people gave their gods llama and alpaca remains. They also gave them shark teeth, shark skin and pieces of poetry. Priests, who were like governors, had ceremonies on top of the pyramid and around it. The pyramid had no chambers because it was hard to make them out of small rocks and adobe.

Around 700 A.D. the Wari people took over. They used it for a cemetery. The Wari called it Huaca or “the burial mound.” Later the Inca Empire took over the area that is now Lima. The Incas did not use Huaca Pucllana, but they called it Ñawpallacta, an ancient, sacred place.

We also saw some animals like cui (guinea pigs), alpaca, llama, Peruvian hairless dogs and ducks. We also saw some potatoes, corn, squash and other native plants, such as agave (like a big yucca plant) and prickly pear. The ancient Lima people ate the cui, ducks, potatoes, corn, prickly pear, and squash. They braided strands of agave into rope. They used llama and alpaca wool for clothing. The dogs were pets and guards.

I liked this ruin because it so big and I also liked the animals. There were models that were Lima people making adobe bricks. They gave me an idea of what they looked like and how it would be to make a pyramid out of mud. I also liked the tour. It was in English. Our tour guide didn’t speak English that well, but he was a great tour guide because he knew lots of facts and he was very nice