Legendary Temple found in Peru

[n2doc]

January 28, 2010—A thousand-year-old temple complex (including a tomb with human sacrifice victims, shown in a digital illustration) has been found under the windswept dunes of northwestern Peru, archaeologists say.

The discovery of the complex, excavated near the city of Chiclayo (map) between 2006 and late 2009, has injected a dose of reality into the legend of Naylamp, the god who supposedly founded the pre-Inca Lambayeque civilization in the eighth century A.D., following the collapse of the Moche civilization.

That's because evidence at the Chotuna-Chornancap archaeological site indicates the temple complex may have belonged to people claiming to have descended from Naylamp—suggesting for the first time that these supposed descendants existed in the flesh.

The sophisticated Lambayeque culture, also known as the Sicán, were best known as skilled irrigation engineers until being conquered in A.D. 1375 by the Chimú, a civilization also based along Peru's arid northern coast.

Archaeologists have been "trying to decode the legend's mystery" for a century, said dig leader Carlos Wester La Torre, director of the Brüning National Archaeological Museum in Lambayeque. "The goal was to understand the possible relations between the oral legend and archaeological evidence."

more:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/

[pleah]

1. K&R Cool!

[Flaneur]

2. Peru is amazing. I could spend decades just checking it out.

[malaise]

3. Fabulous

Thanks for this

[mission-sundancer]

4. Legendary Temple found in Peru

  In a thousand years will we be worthy of being dug up and
studied in such a fashion? 

[AngryAmish]

5. Finding it is the easy part