1 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

3,200-Year-Old Temple Mural of Spider God in Peru

Archaeologists in northern Peru have discovered a 3200-year-old mural. The mural was painted on the side of an ancient adobe temple. It is thought that the mural depicts a stylized zoomorphic Spider god related to rain and fertility, wielding a knife.

The mural, applied with ocher, yellow, gray, and white paint to the wall of the 15 MX 5 m adobe structure in Virú province in Peru’s La Libertad region, was discovered last year.

Experts believe the shrine was built by the Cupisnique culture in the pre-Colombian era.

Archaeologist Régulo Franco Jordán said that the strategic location of the shrine by the river led researchers to believe that it was a temple dedicated to the god of water.

“What we have here is a shrine that would have been a ceremonial center thousands of years ago,” he told Peru’s La República newspaper.

“The spider on the shrine is associated with water and was an incredibly important animal in pre-Hispanic cultures, which lived according to a ceremonial calendar. It’s likely that there was a special, sacred water ceremony held between January and March when the rains came down from the higher areas.”

Experts believe the shrine was built by the pre-Columbian Cupisnique culture, which developed along Peru’s northern coast more than 3,000 years ago.

According to the archeologists, about 60% of the complex, which lies 500km north of Lima, was destroyed in November last year when farmers in the region used heavy machinery to try to extend their crop fields.

“The site has been registered and the discovery will be covered up until the [Covid] pandemic is over and it can be properly investigated,” he told La República.

What is Cupisnique culture?

While the Cupisnique culture was once considered to be simply a coastal variant of the Chavín culture, it was later recognized as an independent cultural tradition that provided one of the sources of inspiration for the slightly later Chavín culture. The Cupisnique culture spread along the Peruvian coast from the Virú valley to the Lambayeque drainage and maintained close relationships with the adjacent highland cultures and the occupants of the immediate coastal valleys to the north and south.
The center of Cupisnique culture was the rich but arid lands of the lower coastal valleys, and its economy was based mainly on irrigation agriculture and fishing.

Cupisnique culture source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cupisnique-culture

Cover Photo: Régulo Franco

Related Articles

A massive Rune stone found under a kitchen floor in Denmark declared treasure

8 June 2023

8 June 2023

A couple in Denmark discovered a massive rune stone weighing approximately 900 kilograms during a home renovation project that planned...

A Scientific Surprise: Bering Land Bridge formed surprisingly late during last ice age

1 January 2023

1 January 2023

A new study shows that the Bering Land Bridge, the strip of land that once connected Asia to Alaska, emerged...

Yale Archaeologist discovered an “arcade” of rock-cut ancient mancala game boards in Kenya

2 February 2024

2 February 2024

Veronica Waweru, a Yale University archaeologist conducting fieldwork in Kenya, discovered an “arcade” of ancient Mancala game boards carved into...

In the Black Sea, there is a “Ship Graveyard” with 2,500 years of wrecked ships

15 February 2022

15 February 2022

The Black Sea is the inland sea lying between Europe and Asia. Blacksea is located in Eurasia, surrounded by Europe,...

An Ancient Building and Gold Artifacts Found in the Ancient Greek City of Rypes in Achaea

10 December 2024

10 December 2024

Recent excavations on the Trapezá plateau, eight kilometers southwest of the city of Aigio in the Peloponnese, have uncovered an...

Mysterious Mongolian Arc in Eastern Mongolia Studied for the First Time

30 December 2023

30 December 2023

Researchers have studied the 405-km wall system in eastern Mongolia known as the Mongolian Arc to learn more about its...

Spanish Stonehenge re-emerges from the ‘Valdecañas reservoir’

19 August 2022

19 August 2022

Submerged by the Valdecañas reservoir for decades, the Guadalperal dolmen has been fully exposed as it was two summers ago....

Archaeological excavations started again after 50 years in Tunceli Tozkoparan mound

28 June 2021

28 June 2021

Archaeological excavations at the Tozkoparan Mound in Turkey’s Tunceli province are anticipated to turn the city into one of eastern...

An 800-meter-long colonnaded street from the Roman period discovered in Türkiye’s famous holiday resort Antalya

18 April 2024

18 April 2024

During the archaeological excavations in Hıdırlık Tower, one of the historical symbols of Antalya, the famous holiday resort in the...

Archaeologists may have found the lost 2,000-year-old ancient city of Bassania in Albania

19 June 2022

19 June 2022

Polish archaeologists may have discovered the 2,000-year-old lost city of Bassania in Albania. The remains of two large ancient stone...

460-Year-Old Wooden Hunting Bow Found in Alaska’s Lake Clark

11 March 2022

11 March 2022

In late September 2021, National Park Service employees made an unlikely discovery in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in...

More than 50 pairs of tweezers found during an excavation of a 2,000-year-old Roman settlement – Romans to blame for no-body-hair trend

31 May 2023

31 May 2023

More than 50 pairs of tweezers were found during the major excavation in Wroxeter City, Shropshire, one of the largest...

The ruins found in Nara could be the Imperial House of Female Emperor Koken

1 July 2021

1 July 2021

Archaeologists unearthed one of the largest building remains ever found at the former site of the Heijokyu palace in the...

Ancient necropolis of stillborn babies and very young children found in Auxerre, France

8 June 2024

8 June 2024

A team from INRAP, France’s national archaeology and preservation agency, unearthed a necropolis dedicated to stillborn and very young children...

Hidden 13th-century carving of ‘face of Christ’ discovered in Ballymore, Ireland

12 May 2022

12 May 2022

At Ballymore, in the county of Westmeath, Ireland, sunlight led to an interesting and special discovery. The sunlight revealed that...