Marcahuamachuco: the next Machu Picchu?
Agence France-Presse
Nov 27, 2011
Lima, Peru – Marcahuamachuco, an enigmatic 1,600-year-old archeological complex built from stone in the northern Peruvian Andes, is emerging bit by bit from oblivion and could become a beacon of tourism on the scale of Machu Picchu.
Ai Apaec, the Moche Decapitator
Looters Strip Latin America of Archaeological Heritage
A century after Machu Picchu’s rediscovery, ancient Mayan and Moche sites are being ransacked for tourist baubles
March 21 2011
The Guardian
The 100th anniversary of the rediscovery of Machu Picchu will highlight the current ransacking of the area’s archaeological treasures.
Etched into the surviving art of the Moche, one of South America’s most ancient and mysterious civilizations, is a fearsome creature dubbed the Decapitator. Also known as Ai Apaec, the octopus-type figure holds a knife in one hand and a severed head in the other in a graphic rendition of the human sacrifices the Moche practiced in northern Peru 1,500 years ago.
For archaeologists, the horror here is not in Moche iconography, which you see in pottery and mural fragments, but in the hundreds of thousands of trenches scarring the landscape: a warren of man-made pillage. Gangs of looters, known as huaqueros, are ransacking Peru’s heritage to illegally sell artifacts to collectors and tourists…
Authorities to Inspect Archaeological Site of Caral to Verify Alleged Attack
Farmers Have Apparently Invaded one of the Pyramids in the Area of “Era de Pando” to build a Water Reservoir
March 23, 2010
El Comercio (Peru) (translated by Kim MacQuarrie)
Representatives of the Barranca Provincial Prosecutor’s office will carry out an investigation tomorrow at the archaeological site known as “Era of Pando,” a city consisting of 26 buildings belonging to the Caral culture, where farmers are apparently destroying this cultural heritage…
“King of Bling” Tomb Sheds Light on Ancient Peru
National Geographic News
April 10, 2009
Packed with treasure in the styles of two ancient orders, the 1,500-year-old tomb of the Moche Indian “king of bling” is like no other, according to archaeologist Steve Bourget.
Discovered in Peru at the base of an eroded mud-brick pyramid, the tomb gradually yielded its contents last summer.
Among the finds: 19 golden headdresses, various pieces of jewelry, and two funerary masks, as well as skeletons of two other men and a pregnant woman.
“Spider God” Temple Found in Peru
National Geographic News
October 29, 2008
A 3,000-year-old temple featuring an image of a spider god may hold clues to little-known cultures in ancient Peru.
People of the Cupisnique culture, which thrived from roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C., built the temple in the Lambayeque valley on Peru’s north coast.
