Chan Chan

Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimú kingdom, which controlled the north coast of Peru until the Inca absorbed it in the 1470s, and it is the largest adobe city ever built in the Americas, sprawling across roughly twenty square kilometres of coastal desert. It was laid out as a set of walled royal compounds, each built by a new ruler and sealed as a mausoleum when he died, so the city grew by addition rather than replacement. The section open to visitors, the Nik An or Tschudi complex, gives the clearest sense of it: high mud walls, ceremonial plazas, and long friezes cut into the adobe showing pelicans, fish, seabirds and fishing nets in repeating rows, the sea running through the decoration of a desert city. Modern shelters now cover the most fragile sections.

History

The Chimú are believed to have built Chan Chan around 850, and it was the capital of the Chimor kingdom, with an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people, until the Incas conquered it around 1470 and scattered its people under their mitma system. In 1535 Francisco Pizarro founded the Spanish city of Trujillo nearby, and the Spaniards looted Chan Chan for its riches: a 16th-century list records treasure worth 80,000 pesos of gold taken from a single tomb. Michael Moseley and Carol J. Mackey began excavating in 1969, and on 28 November 1986 UNESCO made Chan Chan a World Heritage Site and put it at once on the danger list, where it remains; a master plan for its conservation was drawn up in 1998, and rain covers and new drainage are being added to protect the mud-brick walls (Wikipedia, Chan Chan).

What you'll find

• Nik An (Tschudi) complex - the restored royal compound open to visitors.
• The adobe friezes - repeating pelicans, fish and net patterns cut into the mud walls.
• The site museum - context, models and finds, best seen before walking the ruins.
• Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol - Moche pyramids with painted murals, nearby outside Trujillo.

When to go

Any time of year on this desert coast, ideally early morning before the heat and glare. Note that El Niño rain events, rare but severe, are the site's main threat and can close sections.

Practical notes

It is mud, and mud erodes. Chan Chan is on the UNESCO list of World Heritage in Danger and much of what you see has been restored or is under cover, which some visitors find disappointing after the scale suggested by the map. Only a fraction of the city is open. A guide makes an enormous difference here; without one the walls read as walls.

Nearby

Trujillo's colonial centre, the Moche pyramids, and the fishing beach at Huanchaco with its reed caballitos.

Key facts