The Fortress of Gran Pajáten

“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)

The fortified archaeological site called the fortress or citadel of Gran Pajáten is located in the basin of the Abiseo River at 9,350 feet above sea level, between the confluence of the Marañon and Huallaga rivers, and sits on the flanks of a narrow tableland. Most buildings in the complex were constructed by the Chachapoyas culture, considered to have existed between 800 A.D. and 1500 A.D., yet radiocarbon dating shows the site was occupied a thousand years earlier, from 200 BC.

An interesting fact about Gran Pajáten is that the round architecture found there is similar to that of Kuelap, and has many exact duplicates of stonework art, particularly the theme of “V”s strung in lines around buildings and houses. In addition, many of the stones and walls are covered with designs that suggest hieroglyphs, though no one has any idea what they mean. A rubbing from a similar panel shows the pattern clearly, and the close-up of a curving ledge reveals a series of befeathered stone heads, along with a clay llama head, a bare two inches in height, indicating that the people of Pajáten were acquainted with this useful Andean camelid. Also, several solemn stone faces suggest a portraitist at work, and are similarly placed in the wall as found in both Tiwanaku and Chavin de Huantar, suggesting even further original connections to a much earlier people who built much of the ancient complexes, fortresses and sites found in the Andean area.

Note the specific ribbon-like design of “V”s around the circular structures at (top) Gran Pajáten and (bottom) Kuelap, that are unique in ancient Peruvian stonework (as are the round buildings); obviously, these two sites were built by the same people around the same time

The central buildings of the fortress complex are decorated with slate mosaics featuring human, geometric and bird figures. This sameness in architecture suggests either 1) The Chachapoya were a culture that stretched over a 1700 year period, from 200 B.C. to 1500 A.D., when they were conquered, and another 300 years as part of the Inca Empire and then the Spanish culture, or 2) A people long before the Chachapoya built all the sites now attributed to the Chachapoya culture. Of the two possibilities, only the latter makes any sense.

The fortified ruins of Gran Pajáten, a fortress of considerable size in the mountains of the clouds in northern Peru

The ruins of Gran Pajáten lie within the region of the Rio Abiseo National Park, and are extremely fragile and most are still covered with vegetation, leading the Peruvian government to restrict visitors in order to protect the fragile ruins and endangered environment.

Gran Pajatén ruins occupy an area of about 6500 square feet, and consists of a series of at least 26 circular stone structures atop numerous terraces and stairways. It is rumored, but not proven, that the site was first discovered around 1940 by Juanajui resident Eduardo Pena Meza while exploring the area for a possible road project; however, there is no evidence that ruins he encountered were those of Gran Pajatén as opposed to those of another abandoned prehispanic settlement. In 1963, villagers from the town of Pataz discovered the Gran Pajáten site, and after he was guided to the site by Pataz villagers in 1965, Gene Savoy claimed credit by publicizing the discovery in the world press as his own.

The round architecture of the entrance reached by several stone steps is shown in this image of Gran Pajáten

An official Peruvian government expedition visited the site and began to clear vegetation in late 1965, and by the following year, they had set up a helicopter pad and cleared much of the protective vegetation that surrounded the site. Many years later, these actions raised criticism due to the delicate nature of the archaeological site. Without the protection of dense vegetation, the stone ruins began to rapidly deteriorate.

In 1985, a team led by the anthropology department at the University of Colorado began a major research project at Gran Pajatén and surrounding archaeological sites. Because of its widely publicized work, discussions began on opening the site to tourism. A Peruvian televised expedition in 1990 once again cleared the protective vegetation from the site, and further damaged the ruins. Currently, there are plans for construction of several roads and tourist infrastructure in the region, but neither have been implemented due to the fragile nature of the ruins, and the high cost of conserving the site while minimizing tourist impacts on its archaeological integrity and environmental context.

One of the many circular buildings in the Archaeological Complex at Gran Pajáten showing the unique stonework attributed to the Chachapoya culture

Located in the high lushly vegetated jungle area of the department of San Martin, and placed on a narrow crescent-shaped terraced plateau, on a buttress emerging from the steep slopes of the hills that skirt one of the Basins of the Huallaga, Gran Pajáten is in a perfect defensive position to both guard against, and give early warning of, an attack.

The builders of these circular stone edifices on an uneven plateau at nearly 10,000 feet in the midst of virgin forest showed perfect knowledge of the engineering and art of building in stone. From 1986 research was deepened to establish the sequence of development, and radioactive carbon samples were obtained enabling the dating of the associated cultural remains. During the last operations a stone causeway made with slabs of slate was found as well as a faced-stone wall measuring 58 x 18 x 12, and showing a slight inclination to the east, was uncovered. Also 28 fragments of bone, including a human vertebra and upper right maxillary bone were found. The dating of the site has been to 200 B.C., and shows that if it were, in fact, built by the Chachapoya, to whom it is credited, this culture lasted nearly twice as long as the Nephites, covering from 200 B.C. to when they completely vanished as a people around 1800 A.D.—no culture ever discovered in the Americas covered such a duration, which raises the questions outlined early.

Because this kind of design is typically attributed to the Chachapoyan architecture, though little is known of the origin of this culture, experts surmise that the remains are a prolongation of a culture that sought refuge and a way of preserving itself over time in the jungle. Another answer, of course, is that this so-called Chachapoya culture did not build these vast and intricate complexes, but merely occupied what others built long before them.