Ventarrón is the site of a 4,500-year-old temple with painted murals, which was excavated in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

in 2007 near Chiclayo, in the Lambayeque region on the northern coast. The site was inhabited by the Early Cupisnique,

Cupisnique The Cupisnique culture was a pre-Columbian indigenous culture that flourished from c. 1500 to 500 BC along what now is Peru's northern Pacific coast. The culture had a distinctive style of adobe clay architecture. Artifacts of the culture share ar ...

, Chavin and Moche cultures. On 12 November 2017, a fire, reportedly caused by farmers burning nearby sugar cane fields, damaged much of the site.Fire destroys ancient Perivian mural
CNN, Retrieved 14 Nov 2017

Location

Located in a valley, the complex covers about 2500 square meters (27,000 square feet). The site is about 12 miles from

Sipán Huaca Rajada, also known as Sipán, is a Moche archaeological site in northern Peru in the Lambayeque Valley, that is famous for the tomb of '' Lord of Sipán'' (El Señor de Sipán), excavated by Walter Alva and his wife Susana Meneses beginn ...

, a religious and political center of the later Moche culture, which flourished from AD 1 to AD 700 (about 2000 to 1300 years ago). It is about north of Peru's capital of

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

.Aquino, Marco. "Temple built 4,000 years ago unearthed in Peru"
Reuters, ''The Star'', Retrieved 11 Nov 2007 The central complex of Ventarron also includes the archaeological site of ''Arenal'', located on a hillslope to the northeast.

Murals

The temple and murals were radio carbon dated to 2000 B.C., the latter of which is thought to be the oldest discovered in the Americas. One mural on two walls depicts a deer caught in a net; another has an abstract design in red and white. The temple was constructed of bricks of river sediment rather than the stone or

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...

later to be traditional in the area; its construction is unique for the northern coast. It contains a stairway leading to a fire altar. Walter Alva, the Peruvian archaeologist making the discovery, commented on the findings:

"What's surprising are the construction methods, the architectural design and most of all the existence of murals that could be the oldest in the Americas. He said, "The discovery of this temple reveals evidence suggesting the region of Lambayeque was one of great cultural exchange between the Pacific coast and the rest of Peru."

Excavations

The team discovered likely ceremonial offerings, including the skeletons of a

parrot Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoide ...

and a

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

, which would have come from Peru's jungle regions, and shells typical of coastal Ecuador. These indicated the range of exchange. Alva and his team worked three months on the excavation. They said that the culture that built the temple had intentionally buried it when finished with its use."Ancient 'Fire Temple' Found in Peru"
''National Geographic'', 10 Nov 2007, accessed 1 Nov 2010 This helped to protect it for thousands of years. Locals have dug away at the site, taking blocks to use in constructing their own buildings. Much of the Ventarrón site had been looted in 1990 and 1992, but the thieves had not found the temple.
''National Geographic'', 12 Nov 2007, accessed 1 Nov 2010 In the 1980s Alva led the discovery of the tomb of the

Lord of Sipán The Lord of Sipán (''El Señor de Sipán'') is the name given to the first of several Moche mummies found at Huaca Rajada, Sipán, Peru by archaeologist Walter Alva. The site was discovered in 1987. Some archaeologists consider this find to be ...

and other elite ancient people at the Moche center, a much later culture whose people also were based in Lambayeque. The royal tomb included generations of burials from about 300 AD, or 1700 years ago. Since 2007, the excavations have been directing by Ignacio Alva who has unearthed several phases of human presence in the temple and made important new discoveries such as an ancient frieze in high relief retaining their original colors with typical Cupisnique iconography.

Other temples in the area

Actually, three temples have been discovered in this area in recent years. A Cupisnique adobe temple was discovered nearby in 2008; this site is now known as "Collud". This temple sheds some light on the connection between the Cupisnique and the Chavin because of shared iconography. The Chavin people who came after the Cupisnique built a temple adjacent to Collud about three hundred years later; this location is named "Zarpan". All three temples are close together, and form a single archaeological site. There are numerous shared elements between these locations. "During the Formative Period, probably beginning in the Initial Period, the Collud-Zarpán site, situated at the northwest end of the Huaca Ventarrón Complex, was the valley’s theocratic capital. It covered more than 2 square kilometers of ceremonial architecture spread between two mounds aligned east to west."Ignacio Alva Meneses
''Los complejos de Cerro Ventarrón y Collud-Zarpán: del Precerámico al Formativo en el valle de Lambayeque.'' (PDF)
BOLETÍN DE ARQUEOLOGÍA PUCP / N.° 12 / 2008, 97-117 /

References

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