Pachacamac was one of the most important ceremonial centers in pre-Hispanic America, 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.
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.
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. |