Ceremonial plaza, Huaca Cao Viejo

The ceremonial plaza at Huaca Cao Viejo was documented by El Brujo Archaeological Complex staff following a virtual training workshop with CyArk supported by the U.S. Embassy in Peru. Documentation was completed with terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry. For approximately 600 years, the Huaca Cao Viejo was an important ceremonial center likely used for religious and ceremonial activities. Although the current building measures 120 x 100 m and is 30 m high, this was not always the case as this Huaca is only the latest of at least five previous iterations, built one on top of the other over a period of six centuries. The main facade, the one that faces a large ceremonial plaza measures 140 x 75 m, and was a space with a great capacity for gathering people. Groups from different sides of the valley and the north coast would have come to the Huaca and witnessed the bright iconographic and ceremonial display. Even today we can see remains of the oldest facades, hidden behind the most famous and late, with religious expressions of the time strongly based on repetition and tradition. Two main characters within the Mochica iconographic discourse are noted in these representations: El life and El Decapitador. External Project Link: https://cyark.org/projects/huaca-cao-viejo/exhibit Additional Info Link: https://www.elbrujo.pe/estudiantes/caoviejo