A Bunch of Ruins

For our last few excursions we've visited the ruins at Parque de las Leyendas and at Pachacamac. The ruins at the Parque were surrounded by a zoo, which I think was a pretty interesting way to bring in people since they can stop by and look at the ruins as they go around looking at animals. The huacas were generally constructed with quadrilateral shapes. La Huaca Cruz was trapezoidal in its overall shape and it might have been this way to match up with astronomical events. A way to see if this is indeed why it was shaped this way, we could try to check that hypothesis by measuring the direction of the walls and check to see if they line up with certain astronomical events throughout the year.

Huaca

The interesting thing about the site of Pachacamac is that it was constructed by several different cultures throughout the years. The first site we came to on our right was the Mamacona, built by the Incans for the women of the sun god cult. The doorways of this building are isosceles trapezoids, which, if we didn't know the Incans built it, could be an indicator that it was an Incan design. Another building the Incans built was the Temple of the Sun. It is another trapezoidal shaped building which again might have to do with astronomical events. An interesting thing to point out about the temple is that it looks like it is the only building on the site of Pachacamac facing the most North-West, while the other buildings are facing more similar directions.

Mamacona

Looking at the structure of some of these buildings, the foundations are made of hard, irregular shaped rocks and more rectangular, probably hard clay blocks were used to build the rest of the structure. While I would think it would be less structurally sound because of the irregular shaped rocks making up the foundation, but on the other hand these rocks are harder than the clay blocks thus providing more support.

Structure of Foundation