Chan Chan

Visits: Mondays to Sundays, 9:00 to 16:30

The road from Trujillo to Huanchaco goes thru Chan Chan.  What is visible is a succession of dune-like collapsed adobe walls that look less than impressive.  However the original bas-reliefs still exist and have been exposed in the part of Chan Chan that can be visited and the interest of a Chan Chan visit is always a nice surprise.

Before you get to the Chan Chan ruins, you might consider stopping at the Museo de Sitio de Chan Chan, which has some very informative exhibits based around the Chimú Empire and the city of Chan Chan.

Because these remnants of a complex culture and society require continuous protection from natural erosion, the abandoned and fragile site of Chan Chan was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986.

Kingdom of Chimor

The ancient Chimú kingdom, also called Chimor, (850-1470 AD) was one of the most important state in the Peruvian history. It covered half of the Peruvian coast, about 1000 km (600 miles) stretching from Tumbes, close to the Ecuadorian border, down to Lima and controlled about two-thirds of all agricultural land ever irrigated along the Pacific coast of South America.

The Chimú grew out of the remnants of the Moche culture. The first valleys seem to have joined forces willingly, but Sican was acquired through conquest. They also were significantly influenced by the Cajamarca culture and the Huari. Indigenous legend has it that Chan Chan was founded around 850 AD by the figure Taycanamo, who supposedly came by way of canoe from the sea, however it was historically significant from the beginning of the twelfth century and reached the height of its power in the fifteenth century, before being absorbed in the Inca Empire. Chan Chan, their capital, was sacked and destroyed around 1470 by Tupac Inca.

Agriculture was a major importance for the Chimú.  They built many miles of irrigation canals to expand the area under cultivation. A long canal was built from the Chicama River to the north, in order to irrigate farmland near Chan Chan in the Moche Valley. The enormous area harvested in the Moche Valley in pre-Hispanic times still surpasses the area currently cultivated.

The Chimú are perhaps best known for their black ceramics, which can depict some pretty racy scenes, and for their exquisite and intricate metal-working. After the annexation of the Kingdom of Lambayeque and the goldsmiths of the Sicán culture, sometime around 1200 AD, Chimor metal working became one of the most advanced in pre-Columbian times. Evidence of large-scale mining and smelting has recently been found in the Lambayeque region at the site of Batán Grande.

It is interesting to note that unlike the Inca, who revered the sun perhaps more than anything else, the Chimú people worshiped the moon instead.  It was their belief that the sun only destroyed things, which is easy to understand if you consider the desert environment that characterizes the region.

According to Trujillo's tax records, the colonial looters have found large quantities of precious metal in Chan Chan. Although large scale production of ceramics, textiles and woodworking as well as maize-beer preparation are all in evidence, the Chimú appear to have concentrated their craft production around metallurgy . The Inca forcibly transferred to their capital in Cusco the highly skilled metalworkers of Chan Chan.

The city of Chan Chan

The Chimús founded their capital a few kilometers away from Huanchaco and called it Jang-Jang, which in the ancient Mochicá language means "sun-sun" (the Chimús spoke the Mochicá language, it is not known which language was spoken by the Moche culture). The planning of this huge city, the biggest in pre-Colombian America, which spans an area of 20 square km, reflects an elaborate system of social-class stratification. The center of the city is divided into nine to eleven walled "citadels" (depending how they are divided). These citadels themselves cover 6 square km, while the bulk of the city's population lived outside of the citadels in much more modest cane-walled compounds that are in very poor state of conservation. The total population of the city may well have been as large as 30,000 to 50,000 or more depending on the season.

Some scholars have tended to link the individual citadels with a list of rulers written down by Spanish chroniclers in the early part of the Spanish invasion. It is however probable that all citadels were used at the same time, with noble families living in each one of them.

Evidence in favor of the "one king - one palace" theory came from the excavation of several highly disturbed platforms found within the citadel enclosures. Clearing the debris left by intensive colonial looting, or "mining" as it was referred to then, a T-shaped tomb was found to have been at the center of the burial platforms. The people buried in these enormous tombs were accompanied in the grave by elaborate offerings of textiles, ceramics, and metalwork. The bones of dozens of women, found around the central grave, may point to large-scale human sacrifice. Apparently, their descendants, who continued to run what could be called the "Royal Mausoleums", used the compounds that contained these burial platforms for long periods after the death of a ruler.

The "Citadels"

Each citadel has very tall outer walls, some of which are 26 feet high, built in independent segments. The citadels have a single narrow north facing entrance which leads down a corridor that opens up into other passageways lining walls and buildings featuring some marvelous rectangular architecture: inner patios, residences, administrative buildings, temples, platforms and storehouses. The walls were decorated with haut-relief friezes done in geometric and animal figures.

The citadels were constructed out of adobe brick finished with mud, with roofs of wood, reed and straw. The walls were covered with a smooth surface into which intricate designs were carved. There are two styles of design present in these carvings: one is a ‘realistic’ representation of subjects such as birds, fish, and small mammals; and the other is a more graphic, stylized representation of the same subjects. While earlier civilizations concentrated on feline and anthropomorphic forms, the Chimú style shows a preference for maritime motifs. The carvings at Chan Chan depict fish, pelicans, and nets for catching various sea creatures. Chan Chan, unlike most other coastal ruins in Peru, is located extremely close to the Pacific Ocean.

The first significant structures, which probably include the Chayhuac Citadel and the Huaca el Higo, were built around 850 AD .

The Rivero citadel was the one belonging to Minchanzamán, the last of the Chimú rulers, who, according to the Spanish chroniclers, was captured by the Incas and taken to Cuzco with Chan Chan's goldsmiths and other professionals.

The Tschudi Palace was probably home to between 500 and 1,000 persons, and its courtyard is one of the best places to observe Chimú friezes. The palace’s sanctuary is also of interesting, with walls showing a characteristic fishnet pattern. Each citadel contained temples, small office-like rooms, gardens, reservoirs, and tomb areas. These citadels, it is believed, were the living quarters, warehouses and burial places of powerful families.

Each of these palaces, most of which are laid out in a very similar fashion in spite of the differences in size, are characterized by three types of structures: U-shaped audience rooms, warehouses and wells. The flow of people was controlled by the site’s high walls, long corridors, strategically configured passageways, and small entrances.

The audience rooms are thought to be the administrative offices of the Chimú elite. The remaining decorations show elaborate clay designs representing shellfish, stylized waves, marine birds and fish.

In comparison to the gigantic Incas storerooms,  Chan Chan storerooms are far smaller. Chan Chan might have specialized in producing and trading luxury goods possibly to distant communities. It is quite possible that the marine scenes depicted on the walls of the audience rooms are linked not only to the realm of myth and ideology, but also to seafaring by Chimú fishermen and traders. Archaeologists were able to find traces of manufactured goods, including the imprints of textiles, for instance, which probably were stored in these rooms until their removal around the time of the Inca conquest. The value attached to the items stored here is apparent by the fact that one had to go through the audience room to access the warehouses.

The T-shaped platform that housed the king's burial chamber was probably the most important construction in the complex, linked to the deification of the founder.

In recent times, the citadels have been given the names of the archaeologists who studied them (Rivero, Tschudi, Bandelier, Uhle, Tello), but in 2006, the Peruvian government changed the older familiar names to new names in the Mochicá language.

The commoners of Chan Chan lived outside of the citadels, and were probably restricted to enter them, entrance being restricted to the the nobility and employees of the compound. Many persons in Chan Chan resided in intermediate architectures, smaller than the citadels, but more complex than huts. An estimated 12,000 artisans working at Chan Chan lived in these intermediate structures. There are 35 monumental buildings in Chan Chan associated to this intermediate architecture.

 Huaca el Dragon (also known as Huaca Arco Iris)

The Huaca Arco Iris is a small Chimú site just outside the Chan Chan complex, about 4 km northwest of central Trujillo, in the poor suburb called "La Esperanza". This suburb can be clearly seen from the top of this Huaca. The Huaca has been heavily restored following severe rain damage after the 1983 el Niño.

Although most archeologists attribute this monument to the Chimú culture, others point its similarity to temples of the Sicán culture of the ninth to eleventh century.

This is a pyramid formed by a dual platform that was protected by a high wall with a single entry. The typical ramps at the time was accessing the Huaca from the top.

While accessing the Huaca el Dragon, note the ramp leading to the first level and then there is another very small that lead to the second level, at the second level there were probably few cisterns where food was stored. At the first level the walls are carved with dragon-like figures (hence its name), but at the top of these figures you can see rainbows (hence the other name).

This building has 14 storage areas, indicating that not only was it religious, but was also a collection center for the supply of goods from those who lived there and its environs.

The platform walls are decorated with beautiful high-relieves representing a two-headed snake with mouths open in the form of a rainbow, which aims to swallow two characters. In the middle is another 2-headed character perched on a small platform or altar.

Huaca La Esmeralda
The Huaca La Esmeralda is located in the Mansiche section of Trujillo. About a 12 minutes ride from Huanchaco. It is part of the wider Chan Chan and is associated to the Chimú culture.

The building has a rectangular base, 210 feet long (65 meters) and 135 feet wide (41 meters). It features two central platforms with ramps. The adobe walls are decorated with with geometric and zoomorphic drawings.

It was discovered after the big rains of 1925. It is regarded as a temple with various compartments and terraces, with very rich and interesting decorations in relief made in clay.

Home About us...   Services   Installations Prices Links

Los Pinos 308 - Huanchaco, Trujillo - Perú.  Telephone/Fax: +51 (44) 46-1285  RESERVATIONS: albergue@lacasasuiza.com