Cerro Sechín Sacrifice Mural

Peru’s Cerro Sechín is the creepiest place I’ve been. The outer walls of this three-thousand-year-old temple are covered in relief carvings of dismembered bodies, likely depicting human sacrifice. What was their worldview that gave rise to this practice?

Although largely unknown to most travelers, one of the most influential ancient cultures of South America is that of Chavín. It served as an important pilgrimage site from roughly 1200-500 B.C.E. As it rose in prominence, artwork bearing its religious symbols began appearing throughout the central Andes and down to the Peruvian coast. This expansion points towards a widespread transformation of the Andean belief system within the archeological timeline, in what's been dubbed the Early Horizon.

Within the coastal desert of north-central Peru, a series of river valleys flow down from the towering Andes into the sea. In recent decades, archeological excavations in this region have begun to uncover the remains of some of the earliest ancient cities within the Americas. Dozens of step-pyramid complexes have already been unearthed across numerous sites, while many more still hold their secrets buried beneath the sands. Remarkably, the construction of some of these have now been shown to ...