Change and permanency on the coast of ancient Peru: the religious site of Pachacamac

Abstract

Pachacamac is a vast ceremonial centre on the Coast of Peru, and one of the biggest sites of the ancient Andes. During its 1,000-year history prior to the Spanish Conquest (ad 1533), the site saw various changes in terms of religious beliefs and practices, as seen through variability in burial customs, methods of sacrifice and offrenda, temple architecture and iconography. As capital of the Ychsma chiefdom and sanctuary of the eponymous Creator God, it attracted pilgrims from across the region who came to consult the oracular idol and seek cures for severe diseases. Inca regeneration of the site during the fifteenth century saw Pachacamac achieve great symbolic and political importance; it became a pan-Andean sanctuary and pilgrimage centre, dedicated to the ancient coastal god. Unlike most other Prehispanic religious centres in the Andes, Pachacamac not only survived numerous episodes of socioeconomic and ritual/religious upheaval, but seems to have thrived and expanded as a result thereof. This article explores the mechanisms of change and posits possible reasons for the site's survival, using two decades' worth of archaeological data and with a special focus on monumental religious architecture.

Keywords:

• Andes
• Precolumbian Archaeology
• Temple architecture
• Pilgrimage
• Inca
• Ychsma

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Nathalie Bloch (CReA-Patrimoine, ULB) for processing of the figures and to Axel Beff at ASEHS for 3D temple images. I wish to express my greatest gratitude to Lawrence Owens for language review and his insightful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript; remaining errors are, of course, my own.

Notes

‘The Incas believed that the edges of the earth were to be found at Titicaca and, at the other sea, the lands of Pachacamac; beyond there was nothing. It was perhaps because of this relief that they worshipped at these two places more than at any other, and they raised up an image of the sun in the vicinity of Lower Pachacamac. And until today that place is known as Punchaucancha.’

It is important to distinguish between sites displaying permanent/continuous occupation, and those that have a particular social (usually ritual) significance that is retained after the site is abandoned. This is typically manifested archaeologically as clusters of burials or intrusive offerings made into earlier ruins; Peruvian examples of this phenomenon include Huaca de la Luna on the North Coast (Donnan and Mackey 1978: 241–340; Uceda 1996) and Cahuachi on the South Coast (Silverman 1993).

Franco and Paredes do not agree on the chronology. Paredes Botoni (1990: 185–6) believes that the temple was used continuously between ad 300 and 600, while Franco Jordan (1993a: 60, 1993b: 46) maintains that the temple functioned from ad 200 to 800, but that the worship process transferred to the Painted Building from the Wari period (from the sixth to seventh century ad). The ritual abandonment (phase G) took place afterwards. Franco (1993b: 60–2) dates it to the ninth to tenth century ad on the basis of the stylistic characteristics of ceramic offerings. No absolute dating is available from the TVP excavations.

The earliest absolute dates firmly associated with Wari artefacts found in excavations at the site point to the second half of the ninth century AD (Eeckhout n.d.).