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The Moche Route program is an initiative of the Fundación Backus, its main goal
is to promote the research, conservation and public use of the cultural and
archaeological patrimony in the northern coast of Peru, to generate more
frequent tourist activities and to complement the ones in the south, which have
become more and more common.
The Mochica kingdom spread along the current departments of Piura, Lambayeque,
La Libertad and Ancash in the northern coast of Peru. It is precisely in this
geographical area that the Moche Route is currently being implemented, its
central activities are the archaeological research and tourist management of
the Huaca de la Luna, in charge of the Social Sciences Faculty of Universidad
Nacional de Trujillo and the Moche Valley Temples Patrons Society.
The Moche Route program does not promote tourism in all the Mochica
archaeological monuments, only in those where there is currently an
investigation project such as
Túcume, the Brüning Museum and the
Royal Tombs of
Sipán Museum (in Chiclayo - Lambayeque); San José de Moro,
El Brujo complex and the
Huaca
del Sol and Huaca de la Luna (in
Trujillo - La Libertad).
In Túcume, the department of Lambayeque, tourists will find the remains of a
great truncated Mochica pyramid and a very didactic site museum directed by the
archaeologist Alfredo Narváez. Nearby, in the city of Lambayeque, the Royal
Tombs of Sipán Museum, directed by the archaeologist Walter Alva, displays the
original jewelry and the remains of the Señor de Sipán (Lord of Sipán).
In the department of La Libertad, besides the Huaca de la Luna, directed by
archaeologist Santiago Uceda and restorer Ricardo Morales, tourists can visit
San José de Moro, where they will find an interesting historical sequence,
because the researchers led by archaeologist Luis Jaime Castillo found, remains
that have supplied information about the transition period in this site: the
moment when the fall of the Mochica kingdom started and the rise of Lambayeque
culture began.
In El Brujo, a research project led by archaeologists Régulo Franco, César
Gálvez and Segundo Vásquez, the visitor will find an archaeological complex
delimitated by the sea and surrounded by farming fields. A large historical
sequence is presented here, because its first inhabitants were the men of Huaca
Prieta (some 5,000 years ago). Then the Mochicas built three big temples there,
usually called huacas, outstanding for its beautiful mural paintings and after
the fall of the Moche kingdom, the site was occupied successively by the people
from Lambayeque and Chimú cultures and later by the mestizos from colonial times
and the fishermen from the beginning of the Republican years.
Those adventurous enough to follow the Moche Route will be able to enjoy the
beauty of other places with cultural interest, for instance, other
archaeological and historical sites built after the fall of the Mochica on their
territory, such as
Chan Chan, which corresponds to Chimú culture (IX and XV a.C.), the
historical downtown in Trujillo and northern beaches like
Santa Rosa
and Pimentel (Chiclayo - Lambayeque),
Huanchaco and Las Delicias (Trujillo
- La Libertad).
The Moche Route Program will expand when new archaeological research projects in
other Mochica monuments begin
Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna
Archaeological Complex
The archaeological complex Huacas del Sol and
Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Sun and
the Moon) which is located in the northern coast of Peru, near to
Trujillo City, includes two big
truncated pyramids, the Huaca Las Estrellas (Temple of the Stars), the Huaca del
Cerro Blanco ( White Hill Temple), the spider geoglyph and other constructions.
In a landscape dominated by the imposing Cerro Blanco (White Hill), vegetation
thrives because of the river Moche and the proximity of the sea.
Both huacas constituted the center of power of the millenary Mochica, a culture
that developed from 100 to 900 A.C. Nowadays the archaeological complex, also
known as Huacas de Moche (Moche Temples), encloses an area of 60 hectares.
Both huacas are separated by an esplanade 500 meters wide, under which lays the
urban center where the Moche elite lived.
Some researchers affirm that the Mochica kingdom ended because of the impact
brought on by the El Niño phenomenon, which periodically causes tropical rains
and floods in the northern coast of Peru.
At the dusk of the Moche kingdom, its territories were successively occupied by
the people from Lambayeque and
Chimú cultures, descendants of the Moche. By 1470
the Chimú were defeated by the Incas, right before the Spanish disarticulated
the Inca Empire, also known as
Tahuantinsuyo.
The Social Sciences Faculty of Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and the Patronato Huacas del Valle de Moche (Moche Valley Temples Patrons Society) are
in charge of this project, and is unconditionally supported by the Backus
Foundation, Robert Wilson Challenge through the World Monument Found, Trujillo
City Council, and other businesses and institutions.
Source:
Patronato Huacas del Valle de Moche
Recommended Links in National Geographic
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