Una nueva evaluación de la Plaza de los Peregrinos de Pachacamac: Aportes de la primera campaña 2003 del Proyecto Arqueólogico Pachacamac

Abstract

During the months of July and August of 2003, the Pachacamac Archaeological Project, under the co-direction of Izumi Shimada, Rafael Segura, and María Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, conducted its first season of what is envisioned as long-term fieldwork. This project with its interdisciplinary and international character has the principal objective of elucidating the social foundations and environmental context of the famed site of Pachacamac. One of the specific aims of our fieldwork in 2003 was to define the location and extent of residential areas corresponding to different time periods by means of ground-penetrating radar survey and related test excavations. In this paper, we present the salient results of this fieldwork in the area of the Pilgrims’ Plaza close to the so-called Incaic’ushnu. Notable among the various documented Ychsma occupational levels are those with indications of repeated “cántaro burials and veneration”; in most cases each vessels was placed inside a carefully built adobe or stone enclosure. In general, the data we collected force us to reassess the existing conception of this “sacred zone” in light of (1) the discovery of numerous, dense and superimposed offerings of mundane items associated with quincha and adobe structures, that are equally superimposed but spatially differentiated, and (2) the documentation of a series of important changes over time in the nature of the use of the zone.

Keywords

• Pachacamac
• Pilgrims’ Plaza
• offerings