Cahuachi Ceremonial Center is located 30 km / 19 miles western of Nazca City (30 minutes).
This complex of truncated adobe pyramids built by the Nascas features a patio and a wide terrace with covered rooms. On top of the main temples, huge rooms with dozens of columns were found. The majority of these pyramids were abandoned during the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.
The Cahuachi ceremonial center Nazca (200 BC-900 AD) is the name of one of the most famous pre-Columbian Andean civilizations. Reputed around the whole world for its fine pottery and for the enigmatic lines and figures drawn in the Palpa and San José plains, this culture saw its first development in the Rio Grande basin, about 400 Km south of Lima and many kilometers away from the sea. Cahuachi spreads over 150 Ha of arid hills and dunes.
The ancient Nazca people built their pyramidal temples by terracing the fossil sand dunes. In the lowers parts, smaller architectural mounds, streets and squares give the site a general city aspect. However, this is a deceiving appearance because Cahuachi was a ceremonial center, a sacred destination of Nazca pilgrims between 100 and 500 AD.
The ceremonies in the place included the construction of temples using thousands of conical or wedge adobe bricks. Each participating community demonstrated their true belonging to their religious community by singing, dancing and banqueting, thus explaining why in Cahuachi there is little garbage, while offerings abound (pan flutes and musical drums, sacrificed llamas and guinea pigs, fine textiles, human burials and pottery representing deities).
The ceremonial site, center of the social, political and religious life of the region, became very busy when the pilgrims arrived at a scheduled date to then recover its peace under the care of the priest and a very small care-taking population.