Well sort of. Loads of old rich civilizations inhabited Peru for the last thousands of years, and it seems customary to have buried their rich important people in big tombs with gold and impressive stuff. By now though a lot of it is gone. The Spanish, when they conquered here, had a pretty thorough system to dig up graves and take the treasures back to the queen, so much of it was taken by them. But over the years people find more tombs buried deep in what just looks like a sand pile, and with lots of sand piles around, who knows what you can find!
The Lord of Sipán
If you get into northern Peru, there is quite a treat there. 20 years ago the Peruvian government started excavating a tomb from the Moche civilazation (about 1000 a.d.) because international thieves kept getting their hands on stuff, and they figured the ought to keep the riches here.
They found more than they figured, millions, actually probably billions of dollars of amazing gold, silver, turquoise, you name it, in the tomb of what was a very important king, Sipán. He was buried in this probably 30 meter (90 ft) tall tomb that extended about 5 floors underground. He was buried with human and animal sacrifices, some of which great warriors and pretty virgins, and oh he was buried in solid silver sandals. Pretty sweet.
They don't allow pictures in the museum, although here are some illegal pictures on Flickr, some show his tomb, too. This is the outside.
Chan Chan capital
About 100 miles south of where the Lord of Sipán was buried, a great capital existed about 1300 ad. It was built by the Chimu people about 1 km (less than a mile) from the ocean. At it's height about 100,000 people may have lived here. It was the largest pre-Colombian city in all of the Americas, and it is the largest adobe city in the world. In the 1500s the Incans took over this city, and in the 1540s, the Spanish conquered them as well.
large walled courtyard area for ceremonies and performances
a maze of rooms where they believed the nobility gathered, walls used to be at least 8 ft
long narrow corridor
Today not nearly as much stands as what used to 700 years ago, as wind and rain (and probably the spanish gravehunters), have damaged much of it. The walls used to be over 10m (30 ft) high, but now are about half that in the highest parts. Despite some deterioration, some of the details and designs are still in tact.
fishnet stockings, err, I mean walls represented their fishing; the smooth walls are filled with small adobe bricks
this pelican design went around the floor of the large courtyard in the first photo
fish thought to be swimming upstream
The Chan Chan city is just massive. We toured through just one of nine of the palaces, and it was large. Each king built his own new palace. Here is the tomb area where the king was buried.
The king was buried at the furthest point in the T shown above. On the right shows 4 graves that were once filled with the kings' 4 best warriors.
Like Sipán, this king was buried in a tomb with a bounty of treasures, but they were all taken by the Spanish. In addition to 4 of the kings best warrios being sacrificed when he died, 38 concubines (most likely attractive virgins) were also poisoned and buried along side the king. Why all the sacrifices? The Chimu believed the king was a deity, and thus deserved offerings.
Not many more details are known about the Chimu culture because they didn't write much more down than the fishing symbols on their walls. Below are a few ceramic pieces that were likely offerings to a king or a god.
Sadly, I didn't find any leftover gold in any of the tombs we visited, but I'm going to keep looking, and with all the sand piles around here, maybe I'll get lucky.
We're silly and adventurous, computer geeks and yoga peeps.
December 26, 2008
Linda
December 27, 2008
Bessie
December 29, 2008
Tyler Masterson
January 01, 2009
Bessie