Was there a flood at Titicaca?
According to legend, the earth was inhabited by giants called Chullpas,
who had become powerful and wise. But their culture degenerated into violence.
And so, the god Viracocha punished them by sending a devastating flood, killing them all.
The first land to emerge from the waters was the Island of the Sun,
and there Viracocha created Manco Capac and Mama Oglio,
the first human couple, and gave them a sceptre of gold.
Manco Capac threw it with all his strength, and where it fell,
that is where the Inca Empire was born.
The majority of the coast of Peru is dry desert land.
Vast expanses of dunes bury everything in their relentless advance.
The air becomes grey and asphyxiating, visibility reduced to almost nil.
Nonetheless, this inhospitable land was the birth place of great civilisations,
who constructed irrigation channels, and created gardens in the desert.
With their advanced techniques,
they developed agricultural societies capable of supporting large numbers of inhabitants.
This is the case of the Chimú culture which, from 1000 to 1470 AD,
ruled over 700 kilometres of coast, and built cities like this one, Chanchán,
perhaps the largest city in the world at the time, with around 100,000 inhabitants.
It covers an area of 20 square kilometres,
and is composed of nine distinct areas, separated by trapezoidal walls from six to nine metres high.
Each one corresponded to a different Chimu monarch.
A network of passages led from these districts of the city to the great ceremonial square.
All the buildings are of clay, the material used by all the cultures of the Peruvian desert.
Around the ceremonial altars, the walls were decorated with bas-reliefs which represented fishing nets.
Chanchán lived in close contact with the sea.
Fishing was a major part of the daily lives of its inhabitants.
Canvases cover the excavation, protecting it from the climatological phenomenon “El Niño”.
There is virtually no rain in this region, but during the past century a number of storms
have destroyed and disfigured the city’s fragile walls.
It was a very hierarchical society.
Power was held by the Great Chimú.
Below him were the chiefs, who governed the different valleys.
Then came the professionals and the tax collectors, who lived in the cities,
and finally the peasants, farmers and fishermen.
This culture was highly skilled in the working of gold,
and many objects made of this metal have been discovered.
The majority of these are clearly of a religious nature.
The Chimú worshipped the moon and the sun, as well as the mummies of their monarchs,
which they would remove from their tombs on special occasions.
The masks with blind eyes were funeral masks, and were placed on the faces of the mummies.
Their pottery has also provided many valuable clues about the daily lives of the Chimú.
It is decorated with depictions of many of their habits and customs
like this pot, which shows a fisherman with his “cattail horse”.
Still today, the fishermen along the coast of northern Peru use these boats,
called “cattail horses”, to work the fishing grounds close to the shore.
The cattail is a type of reed or bulrush which grows in the marshlands.
Once it is cut and dried in the sun, it becomes tough and flexible,
very resistant, and waterproof.
At dawn, the fishermen set out to sea,
expertly maintaining their balance as they ride the waves,
using the most ancient of all surfing techniques.