The LDS Temple in Trujillo Peru

Last weekend due to Women's Conference our Lima Temple was closed Saturday afternoon so we flew north, for less than a one hour flight, to Trujillo. We have been wanting to visit this part of Peru for some time. Prior or our leaving, and while making preparations in Utah for our mission, we were advised by several Peruvian friends to wait until the Trujillo Temple is done because the weather is better there and the food too. We found both to be the case. The food exceeded expectations and weather most pleasant. Its climate is referred to as being 'primavera eterna' or eternal spring. 

Currently a very ugly and tall red metal fence surrounds the Temple site.

ASPERSUD is the acronym of the legal name of the Church in Peru. 

Before the fence went up it was a farmer's field on what was originally the

Chimor city of Chan Chan. 

The architect's rendering of the Trujillo Temple. It is expected to be completed
in 2014. It will be a little larger than the Templo de Lima but with two
larger ordinance rooms rather than the smaller four room arrangement of Lima. 

In addition, there are some outstanding archaeological sites close by. In fact, the site of the Trujillo Temple and the surrounding businesses and development sits on the pre-Inca and Colombian site known as Chan Chan. Peru is a land of 10,000 temples and now there will be two Templos de Mormones.  We and our Peruvian member friends are all very happy.  Chan Chan is recognized as the largest of all Pre-Colombian cities in the Americas with a population ranging between 30,000 on the low end to as high as 60,000 by some accounts. Our very well educated guide believes that number to have been closer to 35,000.  According to the archaeological investigations,  it was common that areas of a city be devoted to a particular craft, skill or goods to be exchanged or sold.  That practice has carried through and is the norm in Peru today except where the modern shopping centers based on US designs have sprung up in recent years. Gamara is an example of that as is La Parada, where we have shopped respectively for clothes and fabrics, fresh fruits and vegetables. So much of Lima and the other cities are organized in this way with streets of specializing in one product or service. You can find a street with nothing but muffler and tailpipe shops. Another street will have exclusively furniture such as chairs, tables, and dressers. Not far from us in La Molina is a street with light fixtures and crystal chandeliers. The merchants seem to prefer this arrangement as it is carried on from their early history and we had this explained to us while touring the ruins of Chan Chan. Archaeologists have determined different parts of this very large city were dedicated to specific tasks, functions, and enterprise, as we find in modern day Lima, Trujillo and the other cities here.

Portions of Chan have been restored by archaeologists. Sifting through the

debris they have determined specific functions and activities in individual 

neighborhoods. 

The rains brought by El Niño and the flooding of the river damaged 

much of the  adobe ruins of Chan Chan. 

Within Chan Chan are numerous religious sites known as huacas. These
are oriented and laid out like the streets of Salt Lake City and the orientation
of most Mormon Temples.  Brother Nibley wrote to the Brethren complaining
the Provo Temple was not oriented to the cardinal directions of the compass
when its foundations were being poured. 

Additionally, we visited several other sites close by to Trujillo from an earlier civilization known as the Moche or Mochica. They flourished in the northern regions of Peru from 100 CE to 800 CE. We have been impressed with the ceramics and art of this culture from our earlier visits to what has become our favorite museum in Lima, the Museo de Larco. The ceramics of the Mochica are the most lifelike and illustrate facial hair which does not seem to be as common in other portrayals among the indigenous of Peru. Their language too seems to have been unique and resists classification with other Amerindian types, but shares something in common with the Turkic and Altaic languages, that of using ablative suffixes. The Mochican language died out in its entirety early in the 20th Century. Perhaps it is not surprising that Asian DNA was discovered in bones from a tomb found in this area of Northern Peru. This DNA was identified that of the Ainu of Northern Japan, whose origins seem to be from present day Mongolia. The rise of sophisticated ceramics known as Valdivia in South America seems to correspond with the time period and style of Japanese pottery known as Jomon. I recall reading a Scientific American journal article in college about the likelihood of a Japanese settlement in present day Ecuador.

A very good example of Moche ceramic pot or vase.
Maybe it was used for storing and pouring chi cha the
fresh or fermented purple corn drink. The Mochica are
known for the very much life like features of their
ceramics. Pots like this were formed from two part molds,
a number of which have survived and are still used by
craftsmen to create replicas of which we bought one. 

We want to return to Trujillo and venture further north to Chiclayo where awaits the royal tomb of the Señor de Sipan or the Lord of Sipan. It remains the most valuable of any tomb discovered in the Americas.

A mannequin dressed in the gold finery found around

the mummy of the Lord of Sipan. 

With the new Trujillo Temple functioning so many members of the Church will no longer have to endure tedious and relatively expensive bus trips to Lima that take between 10 and 16 hours from the north of the country. A new hospedaje or housing building  is expected to be completed early next year on the Lima Temple grounds accommodating these weary and faithful travelers.

Exterior of the new hospedaje.

RA and the Presidente tour the apartments for the temple missionaries. 

There is more to write about our trip to Trujillo and the sites of El Brujo, Huaca del Sol y Luna but they must wait for another time. We continue to be fascinated with the history and people of this incredible land.