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Many of the pre-Inka civilizations of Peru had their administrative and religious centers close to the Peruvian coast in or near the fertile river valleys. Since the land between the coast and the Cordillera is part of one of the Earth's most extreme deserts, it was only from these river valleys that water could be obtained. Fortaleza de Paramonga, about 200 km north of Lima, is on the Pan-American Highway close to the coast and only a stone's throw from the Río Paramonga. Very little appears to be known about this spectacular assemblage of adobe bricks based on the scant mention of it in my collection of archaeological books on pre-Columbian South America. When it is mentioned, authors attribute its construction to the Chimu peoples who dominated much of coastal Peru after the Moche but before the Inka conquest. The center of the Chimor Kingdom was the vast adobe city of Chan Chan, on the coast north of Trujillo. The massive structure appeared to be entirely of human construction. It rises from the river flood plane in 5 to 7 tiers (depends on how and where you count them). The outer facing of the vertical walls of each tier are made entirely of uniformly sized adobe bricks. The ones on the top that are most exposed to the elements tend to crumble to dust when you rub them. If you brush away the finely pulverized sand, which must be from the crumbling bricks, there is evidence in many places that the wall were at one time coated with a smooth plaster and painted in bright colors. One of the few books I have that actually mentions Paramonga confirms this conclusion.
At the top of the structure we found a few small rooms and passages. Surprisingly, the floor in many places here was covered with hard, flat stone slabs. Some of these are visible in the above photograph. As you can see, the carefully wrought trapezoidal shape of the doorways is reminiscent of Inka construction elsewhere in Peru. You can also see that the protected interior walls still have their smooth covering of mud or plaster in place. Unfortunately, rather than preserving whatever paintings may have existed on these surfaces, they have served as a palette for countless graffiti artists who have covered nearly every square inch of the surface with their work.
The Moche culture flourished on the north Coast of Peru from about 100 to 700 CE. Their capital was near present day Trujillo and is called Huaca del Sol y de la Luna (the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon). This culture existed contemporaneously with the Nazca culture of Southern Peru. Pañamarca is believed to have been one of the main administrative/ceremonial centers of this culture. It is near the coast in the Nepeña Valley. And like Paramonga every pile of rubble and sand at the large site appears to be the work of the hands of man. The image on the left above shows how abruptly the main parts of the ruin rise out of the flat alluvial plane. The largest structure, viewed from the top in the right hand image, is a massive stepped pyramid built along the same lines as the much large Moche structures at Huaca del Sol. As you can see from the image, it appears to be built entirely of adobe brick rather than with the brick just as a facing for rubble filled interior spaces. It was probably sliced open by huaqueros or tomb robbers. These groups of thieves are well organized and equipped. They often have heavy earth-moving equipment at their disposal. If the findings from the Royal Tomb at Sipan are any indication, the treasures buried in and around the pre-Inka sites amply justified the efforts of the thieves. Rich collectors in the United States provide the main market for the wealth of objects looted from pre-Columbian sites. Here are some links to these and other sites on pre-Columbian sites in Peru other than those having to do with the Inka civilization:
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