CHANQUILLO PERU
THE OLDEST SOLAR CALENDAR OF AMERICA
THE PYRAMIDES OF THE SUN
CASMA SUMMER PROGRAM
3 DAYS / 2 NIGHTS
Departures: Tailor made.
Special Set Departure: 18th to 20 of March 2015
Day 01.- Leaving from Lima to Casma (aprox.7 hours). Arrival, checking into the Hotel. Overnight.
Day 02.- Morning visit to Sechin, to see the "Max Uhle" Museum and the site. The visit will take aprox. 3 hrs. Return to Casma.
Afternoon visit to the Beach. To return to Casma after the Sunset.
Day 03.- Early in the morning departure to Chanquillo, the oldest solar observatory in America. Across on the east side, its located a hill that has on its top, 13 towers, that according to the archaeologist Ivan Ghezzi, the movement of the Sun during the whole year coincides with one of the 13 towers, been able to define the solstices and equinoxes. Return to Casma. Overnight.
Day 03.- Return to Lima or continue to Huaraz or Chimbote to head towards Trujillo.
| Type of Service | 01 Person | 02 or more |
Rate per Person | Hostal 3*** Stars | $ 550.00US | $ 370.00US |
HISTORY
"THE PILLARS OF THE SUN"
Up to now, according to the stories of the first cronists, it was believed that the first solar observatories were in the region of the Coricancha, near Cuzco, or they had been built by the Moche Culture, 600 years after Chanquillo. However, those denominated "Pillars of the Sun" that marked the stations and the moment for planting the fields in the region of the Cuzco, they have been erased with the step of time and it's ignored, their precise location.
Chanquillo "it is a very previous structure in the Peruvian coast that seems to have been built to facilitate the observations of the "Sunset and of the Sunrise", it points out the report.
On the other hand, the archaeological excavations revealed that in the construction, there made this offerings in shape of figures of ceramic warriors' with decorations that would seem to be distinction signs, what suggests ritual practices as well as the existence of social classes. "The adoration of the Sun and the cosmological customs of Chanquillo perhaps have helped to legitimate the authority of an elite class, like it happened with the Inca Empire, two millennia, later", according to the scientists.
In an article of analysis published by Science, the archaeologist Charles Mann picks up the opinions of other scientists that support the idea that Chanquillo was only a solar observatory and not a military fortress of that time. According to Luis Jaime Castle, archaeologist of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Peru, is a clear example of a "monumental calendar". "it is difficult to think for another thing it could of served the observation towers", and its presence reveals that it existed very advanced measuring techniques, 600 years before the Moche Culture. "This tells us that it is possible that has
happened other things that we didn't know", he adds.
But, on the other hand, for Daniel Sandweiss is evident the practical necessity for the residents of that region to have the solar observatory of Chanquillo. According to the scientist, the agriculture was crucial in that time and that area depended on the irrigation provided by the rivers. "The solar observation was necessary to know when it should be planted", according to him.