Pachacamac, Ancient Zarahemla

In 1903, M. Uhle, published writings on Pachacamac, an ancient ruin outside Lima, Peru, in the University of Pennsylvania Publications, Folio, Philadelphia, in which he wrote:

“Pachacamac, which means “Creator God,” was a famous religious center in ancient Peru, comparable to the Egyptian Thebes or the Mohammedan Mecca. According to Estes, it originally contained a shrine of the "creator " god, Pachacamac, to which flocked pilgrims coming from all parts of Peru, three hundred leagues or more,” and later, after conquest of the place by the Peruvians of the highlands, it also had a famous Temple of the Sun.

It was at the same time a political center, the seat of a leader who ruled over the populous valleys of Lurin, Rimac, Chancay, Huacho, Supe, and Huanan, according to Garcilasso, with Its decline dating from the year of the entrance of the Spaniards in 1533 and the destruction by them of the venerated statue of the principal deity. In the early fifties of the sixteenth century the Augustinian monks transferred the town to the valley, and in the first part of the seventeenth century it was already a desolate pile of ruins, according to Calancha.

The inhabitants and the pilgrims of Pachacamac disappeared, leaving scarcely a trace in history, but they left behind a vast number of graves, with the total number of burials that existed within and about the ruins estimated at between 60,000 and 80,000. There are six or more aggregations of the graves which may be regarded as distinct cemeteries, but burials, often two deep, existed apparently in every available part of the ground, within the temples, and even about and within the dwellings. The middle part of the region, bounded by the principal ruins, and especially the front of
the Temple of Pachacamac, look like one vast burial place. And according to Calancha, many of the skulls found there showed injury, battle wounds, etc.”

Today, Pachacamac is a serene appearing ruins overlooking the Pacific Ocean, about 25 miles south and west of Lima, Peru, in the Lurin Valley. It is a vast site containing a number of pyramids, and Spanish historical records, along with extensive archaeological research at the site, have served to clarify its history and significance, dating its rise in the last millennium B.C., and its greatest prominence around 200 A.D. The complex covers about 210 acres (85 hectares), and later, during Inca, times, additional buildings were constructed there.

In my book, “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica,” this ancient city of Pachacamac, or Zarahemla, is discussed.