An expert works on excavation of the ceremonial corridor where 20 pre-Columbian wooden statues were found. -- AFP Photo Viet Nam News
Posted on 10/27/2018 4:45:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archeologists in Peru have found 20 800-year-old wooden statues in the largest pre-Columbian site in the Americas, Culture Minister, Patricia Balbuena and researchers revealed on Monday.
The statues, all but one of which were in a good condition, were found in the Chan Chan archeological site: a city that was once the capital of the Chimu Kingdom and pre-dated the Inca Empire.
Located close to the north Peruvian modern city of Trujillo, Can Chan was comprised of 10 citadels, or walled palaces, in its six kilometer squared centre of a wider city that measured 20 square kilometres.
Each statue measures 70-centimetres in height and they were aligned in niches in the wall of a ceremonial corridor decorated with high mud reliefs in a thousand-year-old building.
The corridor where they were found, buried in earth, was only discovered in June in the Utzh An or Great Chimu palace...
Each sculpture is standing with a circular object on its back, perhaps a shield.
The corridor is decorated with squares, like a chessboard, and waves in high relief, while there are also images of the "lunar animal," a mythical symbol common in pre-Hispanic cultures along the north Peruvian coast, according to archeologist Henry Gayoso.
The Chimu culture flourished between 900 and 1450 AD on the northern coast of Peru and at its apogee, Chan Chan, which means resplendent sun, had 30,000 inhabitants.
Only 14 square kilometres of the original complex remains but even that is under threat from the climate, looting and residential encroachment.
(Excerpt) Read more at vietnamnews.vn ...
An expert works on excavation of the ceremonial corridor where 20 pre-Columbian wooden statues were found. -- AFP Photo Viet Nam News
Amazing find.
They misspelled Colombian.
You know they mean pre-Columbus, right?
Nope.
I’ll let myself out.
meme faced???
800 years old is pretty good for wood. My wood decks last 15 years.
No sign of fire. Looks like everyone just packed up and left town, or this shrine or palace anyway.
Racist bastards !
These statues weren't made for walking, and that's not what they do... hmm, good idea for a hit song...
LOL
So these were NPC’s?
LOL
Not the amazing Chan clan?
I'll bet you wish you'd posted that one in the Pompeii thread, where it would make way more sense. ;^D
Shades of Easter Island
As I recall from earlier posts, similar but larger peruvian statues have been found
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