Lost Chachapoya city hiding under the moss of centuries
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Back in 1976, on assignment for Natural History
magazine in northeastern Peru’s Upper Amazon Province, I came across the
remains of a huge rectangular stone building, almost flush with the summit. It
commanded a sweeping view of the countryside.
“A great
military observation post,” I remember thinking. I would later learn that it
had belonged to an enigmatic, warlike people known as the Chachapoya, who
flourished in the region from the beginning of the ninth century until their
subjugation by the Inca in the 1470s. For defense reasons, they built their
fortress cities and tombs in the remote heights along the eastern edge of the
Andes.
As I walked
around the foot of the cliff, looking up in search for a good camera angle, I
dropped into a 10-foot hole. Dazed but unhurt, I found I had landed inside a
tunnel that stretched far in opposite directions. Somehow, I managed to climb
out. Back at the farm where I was staying, I asked about the tunnel.
“It was to
shorten the distance,” the farmer replied. What he meant was that, according to
local lore, the Chachapoya who entered the tunnel were magically transported, Star Trek-style,
to places hundreds of miles away.
Moved by the experience, I
promised myself to return, and 31 years later, hearing of the Discovery of a new Chachapoya lost city, I flew back there, this time on an Archaeology magazine
assignment.
In my yesterday
post of a cloud forest picture, I mentioned how the ruins are so hidden behind the
moss of centuries that you could pass near them without noticing them.
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