Ruins of the city of Huaca

map of the city of Huaca

The day spent at the Parque de las Leyendas and Museo de Sitio was my favorite day so far. The park was built around the ruins of Hauca. The structure of the park was extremely interesting as there was a zoo positioned around the ruins and the museum.

Although the animals were so much fun to look at and interact with it was the artifacts and the ruins that brought us to the park. I liked getting to hear about how the trapezoidal  shaped buildings were possibly built that way because of the solstices. It is possible that the two different abnormal sides of the buildings would line up with each of the solstices so the villagers could better account for time and when it was time to plant what or harvest etc. Although there only seemed to be one building in the city of Huaca that fit this description it would be enough to serve their purpose (assuming that is the reason they constructed the buildings this way).

Huaca 38: La Cruz

We noted that you can study the direction of the walls with a compass and then compare them with records of the direction of the sun setting and rising at certain points in the year to possibly find significance. There is a good chance that the construction of the city was done for specific purposes (i.e. agricultural etc).

wall pointing almost directly north

http://www.delange.org/LordSipanGold/LordSipanGold.htm

There were some other pieces of artifacts that I personally was intrigued by. The first being the Protector Coxal. We can deduce from the information in the museum that it was used by the Lord of Sipán (Moche lord) who used it for decapitation. There may be some possible connection between these and the guillotine that we see emerge much later in france. 

protector coxal 

There also seems to be some similarities between the way that Lord of Sipán was buried and how the egyptians buried their prestigious people in the tombs. According to the Museo de Sitio, Lord of Sipán was buried with 8 people including a protector as well as a family pet and some of their possessions (seemingly expensive ones). This is not unlike the Egyptians who have extremely similar burial styles. 

Señor de Sipán

Señor de Sipán