Chavín de Huántar, Peru
A Pre-Columbian World Heritage Treasure
Chavin's expansive central plaza.
Chavín de Huántar, which lends its name to the rich pre-inca Chavín culture, is one of the oldest major cultures in Peru. Chavín is well known for having controlled and increased trade in the region and also for finding non-coercive means to build authority. In 1985, UNESCO designated Chavín a World Heritage site. Chavín is a former ritual and pilgrimage center; functioning between 1500 and 500 B.C., it is the most elaborate and best known of the Andean formative period sites. Chavín de Huántar is located east of Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain chain near the long and picturesque valley known as the Callejon de Huaylas.
As one of the earliest and best-known pre-Columbian sites, Chavín’s architecture embodies a complex of terraces and plazas surrounded by major platforms of dressed stone. Extensive carved stone decoration portraying exotic human-animal hybrid figures give a striking appearance to this former place of worship. Archaeologists refer to this cultural expansion as the “Chavín Horizon” temple system.
