At the beginning of the 1900s, the Peruvian capital of Lima had only about 130,000 inhabitants; in 1920 already about 176,000, in 1940 540,000. The population roughly doubled by the 60s and again by the 70s; at the turn of the millennium Lima was home to over 6 million, and today 9 million. This explosive growth caused many ancient structures that were still standing to give way to modern growth and urban renewal in the 20th century. Unfortunately, Lima was not prepared for this sudden growth, and with no other choice the immigrants squatted on land or settled wherever they could even if it was next to, inside or on top of an archaeological site.
First, most migrants took up residence at the outskirts of what today is the historic city center quickly turning the haciendas, farms, agricultural land and green spaces surrounding the city into residential and working areas and soon uniting today’s city center with the towns of Miraflores, Barranco, Magdalena and Callao into one giant city. Later the hills to the east of Lima and the desert around it were populated as Lima city became the Greater City of Lima. In this unprecedented growth, the ancient sites in Lima were mostly destroyed under urban sprawl.
Today an estimated 400 to 500 known sites are home to the biggest number of pre-colonial archaeological zones of any city in South America. These ancient ruins are spread throughout the metropolitan area of Lima making the Peruvian capital the South American city with the largest number of pre-Colombian archaeological sites—there are about 45,000 to 50,000 in all of Peru.
The pyramid of La Luz is just one of thousands of historic sites, or huacas, that are being crowded out or destroyed as roads, schools, residential neighborhoods and stadiums are built to meet the population's growing demands. Today, high-rise apartment buildings tower around many sites, and highway traffic barrels through a pair of tunnels newly burrowed under an adobe palace at a 900-year-old cemetery. One of the few well-preserved pyramids sits across from the mansion of the Peruvian, highlighting the creeping pace of urbanization in Peru's bustling capital.
Thousands of years before the Spanish conquerors arrived in South America, what we know today as Peru was inhabited by numerous highly advanced cultures that over time built impressive structures, settlements, road networks, irrigation channels and much more amazing use with their complex skills in construction, agriculture and arts, their culture and social structures.
To demonstrate the beginning of the new era to the locals, especially sacred places and important administrative and religious centers in the country were vandalized, plundered, and idols, other religious and ceremonial objects destroyed wiping out the adoration and power that for hundreds of years radiated from them.
After that some of the sites were just abandoned and left to deteriorate as for example Pachacamac, the most important and influential ancient ceremonial and administrative center in the coastal region. Others were (partly) destroyed and either on the site or on top of them new buildings erected.
For example, the Presidential Palace, former “Palace of the Viceroys of Peru,” and before that “Pizarro’s Palace,” for example was built on the site of the residence of Taulichusco, the Inca leader of the region; Lima’s famous cathedral erected on the grounds of a religious temple next to it; or the Church of San Juan de Bautista built on top of the Sun Temple in Vilcashuaman which was one of the most important religious and administrative centers the Incas built outside of Cusco.
• La Luz. The huaca of La Luz, meaning “the Light,” was built thousands of years ago, along with other similar buildings like Culebras (on University Avenue), Panthéon Chino (half a block from Mariano Cornejo Avenue in Pueblo Libre), Palomino (In the Neighborhood Unit of Palomino) and others that have already been destroyed formed the periphery of the pre-Hispanic urban area.
The Light (La Luz) lies in the midst of what was a huge urban complex in pre-Hispanic times. Close by are the pyramids of Mateo Salado and the Archaeological Complex of Maranga (which groups more than 40 pyramids located in the lands of the Park of Legends, the Catholic University, the University of San Marcos and neighboring lands.
The Light are two small buildings very close, and poorly preserved. Apparently these structures are isolated, but this is because when the city of Lima grew, it surrounded the archaeological sites, causing that impression. Excavated in 1968 the antiquity of the archaeological site of La Luz was determined. It was also determined that La Luz was a center of textile production.
Since very ancient times the textile activity was important in ancient Peru. The inhabitants of Temples as ancient as the Galgada in the Chavin region devoted much of their time to the textile industry, and cotton was widely cultivated for that purpose. It is therefore no surprise that buildings like the Light were dedicated to this ancient prehispanic industry. The fabrics used them not only as clothing, but also as a means of exchange
The cotton fabrics and dresses produced in La Luz used the colors of blue, white, brown and nuances of these. The designs were usually vertical stripes. It was also determined that in addition to textile production, the ancient inhabitants of La Luz were devoted to their food.
• Cruz Blanca. This architectural site of huaca Cruz Blanca (White Cross) was given that name because some walls found in these ruins were painted white. This site, located in the Park of Legends (Parque de las Leyendas), in Maranga (Lima), was an important administrative center, with walled rooms and squares made of adobes, some were roofed by the footprints of poles on their floors, others have remains of white paint on its walls—this makes the White Cross site one of the most representative archaeological huacas of the Lima pre-Hispanic architecture.
In the heart of Pre-Columbian Lima, at the time of the arrival of the Spanish, a vast city they named Maranga, which they found south of the Rimac River between modern day Lima and Callao. Certainly the administrative center of power in the northern part of the area with Pachacamac an important center of the south, this city was built long before the native cultures of Lima who lived there. Today most of this important area has been incorporated into the vast expansion of growth that joined these different cities into one vast population region known today as Lima. Unfortunately, much of the area’s architectural sites have been destroyed through the urban spread with only a few of the original hundreds of architectural sites remaining, which remaining pyramidal structures includes the huaca Cruz Blanca and the huaca Maranga.
The area called Maranga today once consisted of 14 huge pyramids surrounded by at least 50 smaller buildings, spread out over a vast area that once included San Miguel, San Borja, Miraflores, Barranco, Magdalena and Callao.
Today, the huacas found in the Greater Lima area below are only a small amount of the hundreds of unknown or relatively unknown archaeological sites, such as: Balconcillo, Santa Catalina, Casa Rosada, La Merced, Aspero, La Florida, La Salina, Puruchuco, San Juan de Pariache, De La Luna, Huaycán de Pariachi, La Palma, Cardal, Mina Perdida, Bandurria, Manchay Bajo, Chancay and hundreds of others.
As has been mentioned throughout these articles of the huacas, they match the extensive Zarahemla of the Book of Mormon, not only in location along the coast where the Mulekites landed and settled (Omni 1:16), they who had 400 years of development and expansion in the area before Mosiah discovered them, and 100 to 200 years following. No area in North America has any such huacas, nor are there anywhere near such concentrations of archaeological sites in Mesoamerica, including Mexico City.
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