(ORDO NEWS) — Considered the cradle of civilization in the Americas, the Sacred City of Caral Supe is a 5,000-year-old archaeological site located in a dry desert area overlooking the verdant valley of the Supe River in Peru.
The sacred city of Karal-Supe is a complex of pyramids and round platforms discovered only in 1948.
The sacred city of Karal Supe is home to an extraordinary complex of ancient monumental architecture built around 2600 BC, around the same period as the first Egyptian pyramid.
Archaeologists consider Caral to be one of the largest and most complex urban centers created by the earliest known civilization in the Western Hemisphere.
Its foundation is approximately the size of four football fields, and the height of the largest pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Mayor, is almost 30 meters.
The age of the site is estimated at 4,000-5,000 years using radiocarbon dating of organic materials, making its construction at least as old as the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the oldest known pyramid in ancient Egypt.
Thanks to this amazing find, Caral became one of the oldest cities in the Western Hemisphere. Coastal Peru has long been considered one of the six recognized cradles of human civilization, and new archaeological finds continue to push back the date of the region’s “mother culture”.
For comparison, the city of Karal-Supe flourished at the same time that the Egyptians were building their pyramids.
The complexity of Caral society as a socio-political state is reflected in the structure and architecture of the city, and artefacts discovered at the site, such as the quipu (the same system of knots that the Incas later used to store information), demonstrate the impact of civilization on subsequent Andean civilizations.
The design of the architectural and spatial components of the city is masterful, and the monumental platform mounds and recessed circular platforms are a powerful and influential expression of the united state.
Caral was the first of more than two dozen fully excavated sites on the central coast of Peru, known as the Norte Chico region.
Archaeologists believe that these sites together reflect the earliest core of American civilization, which existed from 3000 to 1800 BC and is completely unaffected by external factors. It flourished for over 4,000 years before the rise of the mighty Inca empire.
The layout of the city and some of its components, such as the pyramidal structures and the residences of the elite, clearly show signs of ceremonial activity, which indicates a powerful religious ideology.
No traces of military operations were found in Caral: no battles, no weapons, no mutilated bodies. Finds indicate that it was a peaceful society.
In 2009, the city of Karal Supe was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the fact that it still preserves monuments of late archaic architecture and urban planning, the highly developed and complex culture that once inhabited it, and their influence on later Andean civilizations.
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