Adobe City of Chan Chan
The largest Pre-Columbian city in the Americas, and the largest adobe city on earth, is Chan Chan. Located in La Libertad, some five miles west of Trujillo and eight hours bycar from Lima, Chan Chan is a gorgeous archaeological site in the desert and one of Peru's most important. Once the great capital of the Chimu empire, it comprises more than 10,000 structures. Some of these were palaces and temples with walls rising as high as 30 feet tall and decorated with elaborate friezes hundreds of feet long. It once contained a dozen citadels, workshops, warehouses, plazas, a royal cemetery and pyramid temples.This adobe metropolis was once a chief state in Peru and very wealthy, with walls adorned with precious metals. The Chimu were the engineering society of the New World: Despite Chan Chan being located in one of the of the world's most barren coastal deserts, its network of irrigation canals kept fields and gardens flourishing. This massive complex stands as a striking testament to the sophisticated society that once inhabited it.
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