Ruins Of Three Abandoned Cities Found In Peru

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31020, 28 March 1966, Page 21

Ruins Of Three Abandoned Cities Found In Peru

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter) LIMA. The ruins of three cities which possibly belonged to a legendary race known as the chachapoyas, have been discovered in the remote jungles of La Libertad, in northern Peru. Two of the cities were walled.

It is hoped that the archaeological remains may shed new light on the chachapoyas. This race of white-skinned, blue-eyed people who resisted the Incas disappeared after the Spanish conquistadores came to Peru. The ruins are situated between the fabulous ruined necropolis of Pajaten and the fortress of Kualb, in the heart of the Andes jungles, in the departments of San Martin and La Libertad. An expedition, led by a Peruvian police detective, Deputy - Inspector Carlos Aliaga Silva, discovered the ruins after local inhabitants had spoken of “fabulous cities” which no-one had ever seen. Other members of the expedition were a photographer, a guide, and two carriers.

The largest of the three cities, called by Inspector Aliaga “La Joya” (The Jewel), is surrounded by an impressive stone wall with huge circular towers, adorned with distinctive rhomboidal designs. The towers are placed along the wall at intervals of just over 500 yards. According to Inspector Aliaga, there are probably between 50 and 100 buildings inside the walls. It is impossible at present to calculate exactly how many since the whole place is buried under thick vegetation. The buildings, like the towers, are circular and three storeys high. In the centre of the city, there is a fortress, or temple, also three storeys but with each storey at a different elevation. A pronounced Inca influence was found in the architecture of the last of the ruins, which has been called Cochabamba, but not in La Joya or in the second city, which the expedition named Atuen. In one house which the explorers entered in La Joya, they found pieces of pottery. The first floor, which was completely closed in, looked as if it had been used as a granary, while the second and third floors were possibly the living quarters.

The second city, Atuen, is situated near a large lagoon called locally “El Sierpe,” meaning serpent. The expedition found remains of hydraulic operations in the lagoon and, when the water-level dropped, a definitely manmade object could be seen in the widest part of the lagoon.

Local legend has it that this is the “Golden Litter” of a king, thrown into the water to save it from the Spanish Conquistadores. Inspector Aliaga also reported finding in Atuen several three-storey high circular buildings, with characteristic rhomboidal designs on the outside, and large swimmingpools or water storage tanks with systems of drainage still in good condition. In Cochabamba, the third city discovered by the expedition, there appears to be a definite Inca building influence, particularly in the large portals still standing. Here, too, there were swim-ming-pools, which appeared

to have been better constructed and preserved than those of Atuen, and the remains of a large wall. Graves, in the form of niches cut into huge walls and still containing human remains, were found near all three cities.

An interesting feature of the ruins is that many of the buildings appear to be halffinished. Building material was found nearby, as if the original inhabitants abandoned the city hastily and fled into the jungle. A stone road, four metres wide, leads out of Atuen towards the recently discovered necropolis of Pajaten, another important archaeological find, but after a short distance becomes lost beneath

the dense, impenetrable jungle vegetation. Theme are also remains of a bridge which spanned the serpent lagoon. A prominent Peruvian archaeologist, Dr- Luis E. Valcarcel, considers the discovery of the three cities could open a new chapter of Peruvian history. “We are in the presence of an unknown world, which is just now being discovered. It is something completely new,” he said.

Further expeditions to the lost cities of La Joya, Atuen and Cochabamba, may, it is believed, provide the key to the riddle of the chachapoyas which has hitherto baffled Peruvian historians and archaeologists.