Photos

My own take of the rather typical view of Chan Chan. While Chan Chan is a massive archaeological site, and was a massive city (it was the capital of the Chimú Kindgom, which stretched for perhaps 1000km along the Pacific coast of Peru, and was at its zenith shortly before the Inca Empire rose to prominence ca. 1450 C.E. and incorporated the Kingdom into its empire), the public tours only take you through one area (the Ninth Palace, I believe), which has a very large plaza, a few other interesting features, and the tour wraps up at this area of storage pits. Chan Chan is right on the ocean, and fish and seafood were undoubtedly important for subsistence (I should know about some excavation data which suggests this, and I could look, but it isn't that crucial, is it?). Thus, while the fish motif is prominent throughout the site, the storage chambers of this area of the site are demarcated by these walls, which look distinctly like fishing nets. So the fish is caught in nets, and also stored in nets, except the latter nets are made of mud. There is also some distinctly Chimú iconography there (which is quite similar to Moche, the predecessor to the Chimor), but I don't know enough about Moche/Chimú iconography yet to offer any interpretations, and again, I don't feel like looking it up...