The Fortress of Chankillo

“Yea, he [Moroni] had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort…and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land…and in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites” (Alma 48:8-9)

In addition to the fortresses of Kuelap, Ollantaytambo, and Tiwanaku, that fit so well into the Book of Mormon descriptions of Nephite structures as described specifically in Alma, there are numerous others. This post is about the fortress at Chankillo, which dates from about 300 B.C. to 200 A.D. "This fortress has been labeled by numerous archaeologists as a fort, a redoubt, a ceremonial center, and a cloistered temple, with consensus being a fort or refuge—a direct indication of warfare."

According to Topic and Wilson, there was great conflict underlying the region of the Casma Valley, with substantial numbers of forts constructed. Warriors were commemorated in art, and wore elaborate dress and ornamentation and had specialized combat weapons and body protection.

A comment in Alma is interesting when comparing it to this statement by Topic and Wilson: “And Moroni took all the command, and the government of their wars. And he was only twenty and five years old when he was appointed chief captain over the armies of the Nephites. And it came to pass that he met the Lamanites in the borders of Jershon, and his people were armed with swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war. And when the armies of the Lamanites saw that the people of Nephi, or that Moroni, had prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing -- Now the army of Zerahemnah was not prepared with any such thing; they had only their swords and their cimeters, their bows and their arrows, their stones and their slings; and they were naked, save it were a skin which was girded about their loins; yea, all were naked, save it were the Zoramites and the Amalekites; But they were not armed with breastplates, nor shields -- therefore, they were exceedingly afraid of the armies of the Nephites because of their armor, notwithstanding their number being so much greater than the Nephites” (Alma 43:17-21).

According to archaeologists, this suggests that warfare within the Casma Valley as an important concept, and warriors in particular, had high status, and that the threat of warfare was a significant consideration in the organization of societies, their patterns of settlement, and the allocation of their public labor.

One of the great fortifications of this time was the massive hilltop building at Chankillo, a site in the coastal desert just outside the floodplain of the southern branch of the Casma-Secín river basin about 200 miles north of Lima on the arid coastal plain of northwestern Peru

Around 300 B.C., a civilization we know almost nothing about built a citadel in a most inhospitable place—a grand fortified structure, temple, and walls of brilliant white covered with red-painted figures. Commanding a sweeping view across the desert, the temple would have dominated the sand-laden skies—unfortunately, all but the smallest fragments of the decorations are gone.

The location of the fortress, which was built of angular granite cobbles and boulders aligned to a present relatively smooth face, with interstices fill by spall chinking, has puzzled archaeologists for many years because, while it is a stronghold of some enormity, it seems there is nothing there to defend against.

It is also interesting that the Book of Mormon makes reference to such an event: “he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land” (Alma 48:8 – emphasis mine).

The monumental complex is comprised of two circular and one rectangular structure surrounded by three outer walls, which altogether span a distance of one and a half square miles. The outer walls are massive in size, with some areas still standing at 30 feet high and 20 feet thick while the innermost wall serves as a retainer to support the buildings themselves. In the 1880s, there were still remnants of parapets visible with inset staircases on either side of the gates to the outer wall, which afforded access to the wall tops behind the parapet.

There were also inset staircases at regular intervals along the entire outer wall, obviously so defenders could gain the wall to fend off outside attackers

The entrances penetrating the three outer walls and the innermost pair of circles have successively different systems of baffles and interior staircases, all evidently with algarrobo (prosopis chilensis) wood lintels—unfortunately, the missing stones were robbed in times past for use elsewhere by locals.

The inner wall also serves to retain a stone fill platform that is the foundation of the temple compound located at the center. The main building is rectangular shaped and is known as the Temple of the Pillars. As indicated by the name, the pillars of this building are the focal point, and serve a far greater purpose than simply supporting the roof. According to Isbell & Silverman, of the pillars that are preserved, each is ornately decorated with depictions of supernatural beings.

The temple itself is divided into an atrium, and four other interconnected secondary rooms. The atrium is a two-story room with staircases on both the North and South sides. These staircases lead up to a U-shaped upper platform that sits over the lower level. This platform is supported by the structure’s foundation walls and the mentioned pillars. It is believed that the upper level was once covered by some kind of material that unfortunately did not preserve.

A corridor from the atrium accesses the four rooms on the lower level. Much of the recent excavations, led by Ivan Ghezzi, have centered in the third room mainly because of its large size and its gallery platform. This platform, like the second story of the atrium, was also covered by some sort of perishable material. Another room also contained a number of decorated pillars that supported the platform above. Because of the layout of the hilltop and the careful design of the temple, any sort of ceremony or ritual would be visible to a vast number of people outside the site walls, leading some archaeologists to believe that Chankillo was used as some sort of religious center.

Another intriguing aspect about the temple is the very orientation of it, which is designed to line up with the path of the sun during the December solstice—surely no accident. Archaeological evidence has shown that it took a significant effort to build such a monumental structure; however, the question remains in the minds of archaeologists: why exactly did the ancient peoples of the Casma valley take the time to undertake such a project?

On a plain east of the ridge is a large compound of the same angular granite masonry as the structures farther west. The symmetrical compound, which measures 525 feet by 560 feet, contains a U-shaped series of rooms around a sunken rectangular court, containing a labyrinth of 27 closed rooms and eight partially open, all interconnected by baffled doorways.

North and South of the labyrinthine compound are other compounds of similar construction and materials, which are less elaborate. Air photographs show a faintly visible series of sunken rectangular courts aligned with the ornate compound in a 650-foot by 825 foot U-shape around a large court toward the south.

Nearby, a set of thirteen towers span the ridge of a low hill running north to south and spaced at regular intervals served as a solar calendar

The second major feature of Chankillo is the solar observatory. This observatory predates the famous Maya solar devices by about 500 years. The Chankillo observatory is made up of thirteen separate towers laid out on the top of a ridge about half a mile southeast of the walled structure. Each of these stone towers measures roughly 30 feet long by 18 feet wide, and each has an inset staircase that leads to the top of the tower. Their arrangement along the horizon has been called a tooth-like layout, and were believed to have been viewed from either one of two vantage points located to the East and West. From these points one can see the sun rising (or setting, depending on which point you view from) in relation to the position of the towers, giving you a fairly accurate idea of the date, and the time it took for the sun to move over the towers gave the observers a perception of time. Some skeptics would try and discredit the ancient peoples of Chankillo arguing that all of these alignments are simply a coincidence.

By standing at the western solar observatory, an observer could track the yearly movements of the sun -- shown here rising between Tower 1 and Cerro Mucho Malo at the June solstice in 2003

Many scientists including archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni disagree. Aveni stated in an interview with the BBC: "It does work, and it works in a way that makes sense given what we know about Andean calendars…the towers also help mark other solar events and count out a 10-day week used by other Andean cultures.”

Little is actually known about the people who constructed the towers at Chankillo, though the rhomboidal shaped towers obviously appear to have been used as a solar horizon observation. This is borne out by the presence of two observation points, one to the east and one to the west. From these vantages, the 1000 foot long spread of the towers along the horizon corresponds very closely to the rising and setting positions of the Sun over the year. At the same time, the hilltop fortress obviously seems to have been built against attack, with its parapets and interior staircases to the walls.