Castillo de Huarmey

El Castillo stands on a rocky hill at the edge of Huarmey and had been looted for a century - the surface was covered in holes and scattered bone. In 2012 a Polish-Peruvian team led by Miłosz Giersz found that beneath the plundered layers a chamber had been sealed under tonnes of stone fill and missed entirely: an intact Wari mausoleum containing more than fifty individuals, most of them women, several buried seated in the postures reserved for high status, with over a thousand objects including gold and silver ornaments, painted ceramics, weaving tools and inlaid boxes. The finding shifted arguments about Wari expansion on the north coast and about the standing of elite women in that society. The site is not extensively developed for visitors, and the principal finds are held and displayed elsewhere, including in Huarmey's own museum.

What you actually see

• The hill complex - looted surface structures over a sealed lower chamber.
• The 2012 discovery - an intact Wari mausoleum of more than fifty individuals.
• The women - elite burials that changed arguments about status in Wari society.
• The looting - a century of grave robbing visible across the site.

When to go

Year-round; the coast is grey from June to October. One to two hours. Check whether the site and the town museum are open before travelling.

Honest expectations

Very little on-site presentation - the tomb itself is not open and the finds are in museums. The hill is loose, steep and unshaded. Staffing is irregular. Come for the story and the setting, not for standing architecture.

Nearby

Huarmey town and its museum are below; Casma and Sechín are north.