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Pachacamac lies on the Pacific coast roughly 40 kilometres south of modern Lima, at the mouth of the Lurín Valley. It takes its name from Pacha Kamaq, a creator deity worshipped across the central Andean coast believed to control earthquakes and be responsible for the creation and continuation of life. For more than 1,300 years, from roughly 200 CE until the Spanish conquest in the 1530s, Pachacamac functioned as one of the most important religious and pilgrimage centres in the Andean world, drawing worshippers and offerings from across a vast region regardless of which political power controlled the coast at any given time.
The earliest major construction phase is attributed to the Lima culture (c. 200–600 CE), who built the Old Temple (Templo Viejo), a stepped adobe pyramid that remains the oldest identified structure at the site. During the Middle Horizon (c. 600–1000 CE), the expanding Wari state incorporated Pachacamac into its network of religious and administrative centres, and the site's oracle cult appears to have grown significantly in prestige and reach during this period. Following the Wari's decline, the local Ychsma (or Ichma) culture rose to prominence in the Lurín and Rímac valleys from roughly 1000–1470 CE, and it was under Ychsma patronage that Pachacamac reached its greatest architectural extent, with numerous stepped pyramid-temples constructed by different lineage groups or communities who each maintained their own shrine within the wider sacred complex.
When the Inca Empire conquered the central coast in the 1470s under Topa Inca Yupanqui, they made a striking political and religious choice: rather than suppressing the powerful and already-ancient Pachacamac oracle, they formally incorporated it into the state religion, elevating it to one of the most important shrines in the empire, second in prestige perhaps only to the Coricancha in Cusco. The Inca built their own major structures at the site, including a Temple of the Sun on a hilltop overlooking the ocean and an Acllahuasi ("House of the Chosen Women") to house women dedicated to state and religious service. The Inca oracle at Pachacamac was consulted on matters of state importance, and pilgrims travelled from across the empire to seek its counsel or leave offerings.
When Francisco Pizarro's expedition reached Peru in 1533, Hernando Pizarro was dispatched specifically to Pachacamac, drawn by reports of its fabulous wealth; he found the temple's idol housed in a dark inner sanctum but was reportedly disappointed to find much of its treasure already removed. The site was gradually abandoned as a religious centre following the conquest but was never fully forgotten, and has been the subject of major archaeological investigation since the early 20th century, including pioneering excavations by German archaeologist Max Uhle in 1896, which helped establish the basic chronological framework for coastal Peruvian archaeology still used today.