Imagine an adobe temple and building complex stretching over nearly eight square miles where Lima's ancient inhabitants traded alpaca textiles and guinea pigs and where high priests sacrificed women and children to the gods. Fifteen centuries later, urban development may have shrunk it down to less than two and a half square miles but the great adobe brick structures of the Huaca Pucllana still stand and visitors can browse a collection of its artifacts.

Archaeologists tell us that the Huaca Pucllana was built by the Lima culture in the fifth century AD and served as one if its most important ceremonial and administrative centers. The Lima culture blossomed on Peru's central coast between 200 and 700 AD and a group of its priests, endowed with both religious and political power, apparently governed from this spot. Constructed with adobe bricks in a bookshelf fashion that's proven to be earthquake resistant, the complex was divided by a wall into two sections according to its two main functions. The administrative sector consisted of small buildings, squares, ramps, patios and storage rooms whereas the ceremonial sector contained a pyramidal temple.

For over 300 years the Lima people worshiped, discussed public and political matters, conducted trade and stored goods at the Huaca Pucllana. Remains unearthed here reveal that artistic ceramics, knitted alpaca and vicuña fabrics, baskets, fishing nets and food products were the primary trade items. Crops like beans, squash, sweet potatoes and lúcuma were cultivated, animals like ducks and llamas were raised and fish, scallops, clams, mussels and crabs were harvested from the sea. People apparently led very basic and peaceful lives carrying out day-to-day tasks until the Wari Empire conquered the area in 700 AD and transformed the temple into a cemetery for its elite. The complex would subsequently fall into the hands of the Ichma and Inca cultures in turn.

Nowadays these ancient ruins rise up in the middle of a modern residential area of Miraflores. Excavation only began relatively recently, in the early 1980's, and is ongoing. Visitors can take a guided tour up to the top of the temple and through the small park of native flora and fauna, then check out artifacts uncovered here at the on-site museum.