Begining of the Project | Galery

HUACAS DEL SOL Y DE LA LUNA ARCHAEOLOGICAL COMPLEX

The archaeological complex Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (Temple of the Sun and the Moon) which is located in the northern coast of Peru includes two big truncated pyramids, the Huaca Las Estrellas (Temple of the Stars), the Huaca del Cerro Blanco ( White Hill Temple), the spider geoglyph and other constructions. In a landscape dominated by the imposing Cerro Blanco (White Hill), vegetation thrives because of the river Moche and the proximity of the sea.
Both huacas constituted the center of power of the millenary Mochica, a culture that developed from 100 to 900 a.C. Nowadays the archaeological complex, also known as Huacas de Moche (Moche Temples), encloses an area of 60 hectares.

Both huacas are separated by an esplanade 500 meters wide, under which lays the urban center where the Moche elite lived.

Some researchers affirm that the Mochica kingdom ended because of the impact brought on by the El Niño phenomenon, which periodically causes tropical rains and floods in the northern coast of Perú.
At the dusk of the Moche kingdom, its territories were successively occupied by the people from Lambayeque and Chimú cultures, descendants of the Moche. By 1470 the Chimú were defeated by the Incas, right before the Spanish disarticulated the Inca Empire, also known as Tahuantinsuyo.

The Social Sciences Faculty of Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and the Patronato Huacas del Valle de Moche (Moche Valley Temples Patrons Society) are in charge of this project, and is unconditionally supported by the Backus Foundation, Robert Wilson Challenge through the World Monument Found, Trujillo City Council, and other businesses and institutions.

[ Management model ]