Puruchuco, an ancient Incan complex, sits at the fast-moving edge of Lima, Peru’s real-estate boom, forcing capital authorities to get creative as they seek to preserve the archeological treasure.
At first glance, the site looks like an empty hill on the city’s east side — a bald spot surrounded by a slum, a new university and a shopping mall scheduled to open soon.
However, a low structure then becomes visible: Puruchuco, an Incan palace with a 16th-century burial ground, and untold numbers of priceless artifacts buried within.
Photo: AFP
Just 10 percent of the complex that covers 75 hectares has been explored, but that slice held more than 2,000 mummies and about 100 artifacts in gold, silver and copper.
“The entire Puruchuco hill has monuments, cemeteries, pre-Hispanic mausoleums that have never been explored because of a lack of funding,” said archeologist Clide Valladolid, the director of a small museum at the site.
The problem is that as Peru’s economy has boomed in recent years — hitting average annual GDP growth of 6.4 percent in the decade to 2013 — Lima, a city of more than 9 million people, has expanded rapidly, with rich and poor alike snapping up real estate.
Puruchuco sits right in the growing capital’s path.
Authorities want to extend one of the city’s main arteries to the Carretera Central, the highway to the Andean region and the main route for food and other products from the nation’s interior.
Originally, the idea was to split Puruchuco in two and build the road straight through it — a plan approved by authorities.
However, the Peruvian Ministry of Culture then intervened, asking for construction to be halted.
With a little creative engineering, planners came up with a system of two three-lane tunnels, each 45m long, passing through the narrowest part of the hill.
Work on the US$8.9 million project began in August last year, using non-disruptive digging techniques and no explosives, and is due to be completed in June.
“It was the engineering equivalent of heart surgery to avoid one of the cemeteries on the upper part of the hill,” said engineer Onerio Robles, who designed the project. “When we had defined the route and begun excavating, we found a mummy a meter away from the tunnel’s path and had to recalculate everything.”
Puruchuco means “feather hat or helmet” in the Quechua language.
The complex is named for a headpiece on display at the site museum. Crowned with brightly colored feathers, it was worn by the curaca, or ruler, who lived in the palace.
More than five centuries ago, Puruchuco was an important administrative and religious center where the curaca led rituals.
Today, the palace has been painstakingly reconstructed and is open for visits.
Authorities have promised to expand the site museum, including the largest collection of mummies in the nation and a laboratory in which to study them.
Valladolid wants to bring back 2,000 mummies that were discovered at Puruchuco in 2000 during a separate construction project — a road through a slum that had sprung up atop the largest burial ground.
One of the mummies’ skulls was pierced by a musket ball — it is believed to be the first person killed by gunfire in the Americas.
Many more discoveries are likely in the hill, Valladolid said.
“In the lower part of Puruchuco ... there are three pyramids with ramps and cemeteries. We need to fence them off to stop squatters from moving in,” she said.
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