Puruchuco

Built in the Inca period (15th-16th century) and constructed on a rectangular, adobe base. The site is famous for the discovery of an urn in 1956 that contained 21 Inca “khipu” — a grouping of strands tied with knots to signify numbers or words. The khipu have since been studied to determine whether they were simply the Inca’s accounting system, or were an as-yet untranslated form of writing.

In more recent years, archaeologist Guillermo Cock has made several stunning discoveries near the Puruchuco site. In 1999, his team began the excavation of thousands of Inca mummy bundles discovered at Puruchuco-Huaquerones, which offered breathtaking insights into Peru’s Late Horizon period, providing the clearest and most complete view archaeologists have ever had of everyday life during the Inca’s reign from 1438 to 1532. Less than a half mile from the massive burial site, Cock later unearthed Inca casualties from the historic rebellion of 1536, discovering the first gunshot victim ever found from the Conquest era.