Pachacamac is an expansive archaeological just a short distance to the south of Lima making it an easily accessible site to visit. This site covers over 1100 acres of buildings and temples, some beautifully reconstructed with work still in progress. It has fallen victim to Lima’s encroaching urban sprawl and has suffered the loss of a few temples to modern vandals from neighboring settlements.
Pachacamac, meaning Earth Creator, was a religious oracle site that was continuously used by a succession of changing cultures as the place to go to for leaders to receive divine messages on what the future would hold and for holding ritualistic sacrifices. Its reign of use began long before the Inca age at around 200 AD and expired with the arrival of the Spanish who extinguished the Inca Empire.
Amongst the discoveries there is an institute of instruction where young women were trained to serve as the sacrificial offerings to their gods.
There is also the Temple of the Sun which faces to the west over the Pacific Coast and has a platform were the sacrificial beheadings were performed with a pit below where over a hundred young women were found buried.
A portion of the Inca Road also runs through this site and it has been restored to look like it would have when in use.