Lambayeque Ruins and Other Delights

We continue to enjoy traveling to archaeological sites in Peru and with the temple closed for its semiannual maintenance closing, we made reservations and flew to Chiclayo, approximately 800 km north of Lima.  Traveling to the north of Peru is also a special treat for us as the food is significantly more to our liking than in Lima.  We enjoy the cabrito seco or goat cooked in wine sauce. The cebiche de pato or cooked duck, and the fresh cebiche de mero or corvina are to be enjoyed as well. Our friend, and college educated taxi driver, Walter knows where to find the best restaurants and about the sites we wanted to visit. His home base is in Trujillo, but he drove several hours up to Chiclayo to ferry us around for three days.

Lunch with Walter in Lambayeque. He and I are having the goat cooked in

wine, 'cabrito seco', cooked without water. I have learned over the years never

to trust the recommendations of a skinny man and my rule of thumb holds 

true for Walter. He is an accomplished cook and our friend as well. 

Both Chiclayo and Lambayeque are not far from the ocean so cebiche is an important menu item of any restaurant and I enjoyed it several times. Even being a gringo Norte American I can discern the differences between cebiche prepared in Lima and that in the north of Peru. The peppers, for one thing, are a little hotter. The waiter asked how hot I wanted it, i.e. how much mochero pepper? I responded "muy picante, por favor." Typically, Peruvian food is never above the halapeño range so it is pretty safe asking for hot. I am slowly beginning to understand the subtleties of the many peppers in Peru.  There is more to enjoying peppers than just just being hot. Each pepper has a unique flavor or 'sabor.' Reading the account of a 16-17th Century Spanish chronicler and Jesuit Priest, Bernabe Cobo, I learned about the religious fasting of the Inca and earlier peoples. When fasting was a religious requirement, the Inca and other indigenous people would give up their 'ajis' or peppers along with salt for a week or more.  Peppers played that important of a role with the people here. I too, would find it difficult to give up peppers or ajis for 10 days, or so, in observing the typical holy days and festivals.

About the best cebiche in recent memory.  We are going to learn to prepare

this when we return home. It is admittedly an acquired taste but I really 

enjoy it. This marinated and uncooked fish plate is accompanied by sweet 

potatoes, yuca, corn or choclo and this time something akin to a deep fried

corn fritter. The fish is "chemically' cooked by the action of the lemon and
vinegar marinade. 

RA has a new cookbook, 'The Art of Peruvian Cuisine', that we found at the airport on our way home.  It has seven different recipes or 'recetas' for cebiche. We will ask some of our Peruvian friends in Utah for cooking lessons. There is an ongoing debate whether cebiche was brought to Peru by the Spanish as it has North African or Moorish roots or was it indigenous. Limes supposedly were brought to the New World by the Spanish. It is clear the Inca prepared it, though their marinade was likely chicha de jora rather than the Spanish lime and vinegar variety normally used today. I have yet to experience this type of cebiche, but may ask for it on our next trip to Cusco. Several of the young missionaries I have spoken to about Peruvian food have told me they are prohibited from eating this dish.

Photography is not allowed within the museum so we have to rely on 

images others have taken.  This is the young Señor de Sipan. Local 

residents were recruited to make the casts for the fiberglass mannequins.

Without any question the most significant archaeological find in Peru has been the grave of the Lord of Sipan.  He was a Moche ruler whose people dominated the North of Peru from 100 AD to 800 AD. I also completed reading Roger Atwood's account of the grave robbers vs. the archaeologists as it played out over the 'discovery' and subsequent investigation of the royal tombs of Sipan. It reads like an Indiana Jones film script. One particular family of brothers or huaqueros actually found the site. They were able to loot one tomb and put the gold objects and other tresures into the murky world of artifact smuggling and dealing. Two other tombs were saved by archaeologists and the police. Regrettably, one of the brothers was shot and died from his wounds while a raid was occurring on their farm. The animosity of the locals toward the archaeologists and the government remains to this day. RA reminded me this sounds like the tale of Southern Utah's own Anasazi pot hunters and their battles with the Bureau of Land Management and the US Attorney's office.

An incredible medallion illustrating the capabilities of the Moche in

working miniatures. This piece shows the care of their artisans in using

turquoise stone inlay, gold soldering and delicate fabrication.

DNA testing of the remains of the two principal occupants of the unmolested tombs confirmed them to be grandfather and grandson. Likely, the middle occupant was the father of the Lord of Sipan. Nothing remains of his tomb except the treasures that were spirited away. Some of the best pieces reside in the hands of private collectors or abroad in a few museums. No one knows the full extent of the lost pieces from this first tomb looted by the huaqueros.

A very unique and fitting museum for the Lords of Sipan. It is accessed by

a ramp on the right to the third floor.  From there visitors descend two

floors to view all of the exhibits and even the remains of the Lords and

their retinue buried with them. 

The preservation of the site at Sipan, its artifacts, and existence of a very incredible museum is due to the passion and energy of Walter Alva and his wife Susana Meneses. Unfortunately, she passed away some seven months before the museum would open.  With permission, Dr. Alva was allowed to bury his wife in the grounds with a simple marble plaque noting her final resting place. When they began their archaeological careers they literally camped out on neighboring huacas without even a tent. They did not own a car, so they stayed for long weeks and months on sites they were studying in Lambayeque. Because of their efforts the greatest archaeological site discovered in the last 40 years (according to National Geographic) in all of the Americas is preserved for generations to study and appreciate. They did this with little help from the government of Peru. Most all of the money came to build the museum by showing the treasures in Europe, Japan and the USA.

Walter and Susana reviewing drawings of a site they were studying. 

The village of Sipan, on the other hand, has changed little since the discovery of the tombs. A few tourists and taxis drive through on the way to see the Huaca Rajada where the tombs with re-creations of the occupants are visible. The King and Queen of Spain were supposed to visit the site a few years ago.  In anticipation the main street was graded be paved in preparation. Their visit was canceled and in the end the village received nothing, only the notoriety that it was the home of the Bernal brothers. It was their grave robbing activity that brought archaeologists to the site. Even the museum was located elsewhere and the villagers are mostly forgotten. Hopes were that they would at least get a new school for their children.

Here we are standing above the tomb of the Lord of Sipan. 

These hills appear as though they are just the outcroppings of nature. 

In fact they are the pyramids of the Moche people and were 

painstakingly built from adobe bricks, millions of them. El Niño and

the rains it brings over the centuries has reduced these pyramids to 

piles of mud and rubble. 

Several theories have been proposed for the decline of the Mochica civilization. Ice cores taken from high in the glaciers of the Andes suggest weather patterns became very erratic. A long period of drought followed by an equal period of flooding brought to an end the Moche culture. These people had a sophisticated and complex society as evidenced in their metallurgy, agriculture, ceramic production, and temple building.  They engaged in ritualized warfare with neighboring groups to obtain victims for human sacrifice. The speculation about the details of such are among the most gruesome and cruel of any I have read.  However, the pottery of the Moche is our favorite and they present the most lifelike any of the Pre-Colombian peoples of the Americas. Their energy in building canals and irrigation projects is still evident after more than a thousand years.

A Mochica ceramic stirrup pot from the Larco Museum

in Lima. It is one of the great museums in Peru and all

of South America. It is our favorite of those in Lima. 

The Museum of the Lord of Sipan is the most

impressive of all that we have visited. 

A Mochica prisoner of war bound with a rope and hands

tied behind his back awaiting sacrifice. Note the facial

hair, something not common in other representations in

ceramics, glyphs, or paintings. A stiff belt of punch from
the Peruvian Star cactus likely made the victim more
compliant and manageable prior to torture and execution.
Cannibalism was also practiced among the Moche according
to scientists. 

We visited several other sites in Lambayeque and their story deserves consideration in another post. There is no question about the upheaval, in terms of the political, social, and religious consequences climate change, brought to the societies of ancient Peru. Al Gore would confirm the link between climate change and societal upheaval. Except in this instance, the change was not anthropogenic.