art. Quite recently Mr. Myring has discovered a great cemetery at the foot of the mountains above the Chicama valley, and has brought to England a magnificent collection of pottery and of gold and silver ornaments. The islands off the coast, called Guañape[1] and Macabi, were looked upon as sacred cemeteries, and had been so used for more than a thousand years. Besides pottery and other works of art, numerous mummies have been found at various depths,[2] all females, and all headless. It would seem that they were the victims of sacrifices in remote times.
Cemeteries have been found in all parts of the coast. There are also very interesting ruins in the valleys to the south of Truxillo, all of the same character, and imposing irrigation works. Squier describes a vast reservoir in a lateral valley among the hills, whence water was supplied to the fields of the Nepeña valley. This reservoir was three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide, with a massive stone dam across the gorge, eighty feet thick at the base, between the rocky hills. The reservoir was supplied by two channels, one starting
- ↑ Guañape, 8° 30′ S., 78° 58′ W.
- ↑ The height of the mass of guano deposit on these islands was 730 feet in many places, and the antiquities have been found at a depth of 100 feet. The accumulation of guano is calculated at ten feet in four centuries, 100 feet in 4000 years. Articles found at 40 feet must, on this estimate of the time taken for the deposits, have been there for 1600 years. It is now doubted whether the deposits can possibly be due entirely to the excreta of birds. The deposits are regularly stratified. But no other explanation has been forthcoming.
