Chan Chan (), sometimes called Chimor, was the capital city of the Chimor kingdom, a pre-Columbian era culture in South America. The city is now an archeological site in the department of La Libertad west of Trujillo, Peru. - Chan Chan, Peru, End of an Empire by Bruce Hathaway
Chan Chan is located in the mouth of the Moche Valley and was the capital of the historical empire of the Chimor from 900 to 1470, when they were defeated and incorporated into the Inca Empire. Chimor, a conquest state, developed from the Chimú culture that established itself along the Peruvian coast around 900 CE.
Chan Chan is in a particularly arid section of the coastal desert of northern Peru. Due to the lack of rain in this area, the major source of nonsalted water for Chan Chan is in the form of rivers carrying surface runoff from the Andes. This runoff allows for control of land and water through irrigation systems.
The city of Chan Chan spanned and had a dense urban center of which contained extravagant ciudadelas. Ciudadelas were large architectural masterpieces which housed plazas, storerooms, and burial platforms for the royals. The splendor of these ciudadelas suggests their association with the royal class. Housing for the lower classes of Chan Chan's hierarchical society are known as small, irregular agglutinated rooms (SIARs). Because the lower classes were often artisans whose role in the empire was to produce crafts, many of these SIARs were used as workshops.
Etymology The original meaning and the language of origin of the place name Chan Chan remain unresolved issues among specialists. Among others, scholars such as Ernst Middendorf, Jorge Zevallos Quiñones, Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino and Matthias Urban have dealt with the question. The puzzle is made difficult by the erratic nature of its written record in colonial documents and by the linguistic situation of the pre-Hispanic North Peruvian coast. As is known, the Trujillo region presented the Mochica, Quingnam, Culli and Quechua languages, among others, of which only Mochica and Quechua are sufficiently documented. Currently, there are two linguists (Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino and Matthias Urban) who have done an etymological analysis, one more than the other, but both rule out a Mochica origin.
Etymological analysis by Matthias Urban Regarding the variation in its written record, the toponym appears for the first time in documentation written as 'Cauchan' in the foundation act of the Trujillo town council of 1536.Urban, M. (2017), Observaciones etimológicas acerca del nombre de la ciudad antigua de Chan Chan y sus estructuras arquitectónicas. Letras, 88(128), 126-148, p. 130. https://doi.org/10.30920/letras.88.128.6. It has also been proposed that the name 'Canda' offered by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo to refer to Trujillo is another written variant of the modern Chan Chan.Cerrón-Palomino, R. (2020). <Chanchán> y su trampa ortográfica: ni mochica ni quingnam sino quechumara. Lexis, 44(1), 301-316, p. 308. https://doi.org/10.18800/lexis.202001.010. The form 'Chanchan' only appears in documentation in a stable manner from the mid-17th century onwards.
According to the review of antecedents offered by Urban, there have been three previous etymological proposals for the toponym, two of which can be considered completely fanciful and unmotivated. The etymologies of H. Bauman as 'city of snakes', who unmotivatedly appeals to Mesoamerican languages, and that of J. Kimmich as 'city of the moon', who unmotivatedly appeals to a Cariban word for 'moon', deserve the latter qualification. The third etymological hypothesis was postulated by German scholar Ernst Middendorf, who offers the Mochica noun xllang 'sun' as etymology and finds in the toponym a reduplication of that root.Urban, M. (2017), Observaciones etimológicas acerca del nombre de la ciudad antigua de Chan Chan y sus estructuras arquitectónicas. Letras, 88(128), 126-148, pp. 133-5. https://doi.org/10.30920/letras.88.128.6. Without being convinced by any of these previous proposals, Urban is inclined to the tentative attribution of the toponym to the extinct Quingnam language already proposed by Zevallos Quiñones in the XXth century. According to these authors, although it is not possible to offer an etym nor a primary meaning for the place name, the Quingnam attribution is justified by the fact that this was the language of the kingdom of Chimor and by the similarity in its apparent structure with other regional toponyms and anthroponyms also apparently constituted by the reduplication of two monosyllabic roots.Such as Concon, Chichi, Choc Choc, Llac LLac, Niquenique, Pur Pur, Sac Sac, Cin Cin, Con Con Con, Cot Cot, Cuy Cuy, Muy Muy, Nono, Ñoño, Paspas, Pay Pay, Poc Poc, Qui Qui, Quin Quin, Sin Sin, Sol Sol, Suy Suy, etc. Cfr. Urban, M. (2022). <Chan Chan> y su trampa etimológica: respuesta a Cerrón-Palomino. Lexis, 46(1), 103-123, pp. 116-7. https://doi.org/10.18800/lexis.202201.003. Urban concludes that
Etymological analysis by Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino More recently, linguist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino suggests a Quechumaran etymology for the toponym. According to his hypothesis, both the form 'Chanchan' and the variants 'Cauchan' and 'Canda' may well be explained by a Quechua etym *kanĉa 'corral, fence, fenced place', and the Quechumaran toponymic morpheme *-n (of probable Aymara etymology). Thus, the current pronunciation would be the product of an "orthographic trap", since originally the would have been used to represent the sound of a voiceless velar stop [k] at the beginning of the word. Originally, the toponym would have been *kanĉa-n(i) '(place) where fences/corrals abound', whose Quechualization results in phonetic /kantʃáŋ/ in . According to this proposal, the toponym would be neither Mochica nor Quingnam, nor would it be so ancient in time.Cerrón-Palomino, R. (2020). <Chanchán> y su trampa ortográfica: ni mochica ni quingnam sino quechumara. Lexis, 44(1), 301-316. https://doi.org/10.18800/lexis.202001.010. However, Urban has rejected Cerrón-Palomino's hypothesis as implausible and ratified his previous conclusions.Urban, M. (2022). <Chan Chan> y su trampa etimológica: respuesta a Cerrón-Palomino. Lexis, 46(1), 103-123. https://doi.org/10.18800/lexis.202201.003. In response to this, Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino dismisses Urban's observations and reaffirms his proposed etymology, concluding that it is definitely Quechumaran.
History Chan Chan is believed to have been constructed around 850 AD by the Chimú. It was the Chimor empire capital city with an estimated population of 40,000–60,000 people.
After the Inca conquered the Chimú around 1470 AD, Chan Chan fell into decline. The Incas used a system called the "Mitma system of ethnic dispersion" which separated the Chimú civilians into places already recently conquered by the Inca. A little over 60 years later in 1535 AD, Francisco Pizarro founded the Spanish city of Trujillo which pushed Chan Chan further into the shadows. While no longer a teeming capital city, Chan Chan was still well known for its great riches and was consequently looted by the Spaniards. An indication of the great Chimú wealth is seen in a sixteenth-century list of items looted from a burial tomb in Chan Chan; a treasure equivalent to 80,000 pesos of gold was recovered (nearly $5,000,000 US dollars in gold).
In 1969, Michael Moseley and Carol J. Mackey began excavations of Chan Chan; today these excavations continue under the Peruvian Instituto Nacional de Cultura.
UNESCO World Heritage Site
On 28 November 1986, UNESCO designated Chan Chan as a World Heritage Site, and placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The World Heritage Committee's initial recommendations included taking the appropriate measures for conservation, restoration, and management; halting any excavation that did not have accompanying conservation measures; and mitigation of plundering. A Pan-American Course on the Conservation and Management of Earthen Architectural and Archaeological Heritage was funded by many institutes coming together, including ICCROM, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Government of Peru. Archeologists have been trying to protect this city in many ways. They are trying to create rain coverings over the buildings to protect them from the rain and save the adobe buildings that are deteriorating. They have also been trying to build new drainage systems to drain the rainwater faster. Chan Chan has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 1986. Since 2000 they have implemented safety measures that include documentation of everything, public management, and an emergency and disaster plan.
Conservation plan In 1998, The "Master Plan for Conservation and Management of the Chan Chan Archeological Complex" was drawn up by the Freedom National Culture Institute of Peru with contributions from the World Heritage Foundation – WHR, ICCROM, and GCI. The plan was approved by the Peruvian Government. Methods of conservation include reinforcement and stabilization of structures of main buildings and around the Tschudi Palace, using a blend of traditional and modern engineering techniques. Chan Chan currently has 46 points of critical damage, though the site's total damage far exceeds these points. The regional government of La Libertad is funding conservation efforts at these points.
Archeological site
The archaeological site covers an area of approximately , being considered the largest adobe city in the Americas and the second in the world.
The walled compounds (palaces) that make up the metropolis are those in the following table. Recently, archaeologists have given Mochica names to such compounds, despite Chimor having spoken Quingnam, a language very different from and completely unrelated to Mochica. This has been criticized as a denial of local history.Y lo que antes fue conocido (por muchas décadas) como: Gran Chimú, Squier, Velarde, Tello, Bandelier, Tschudi, etc, ha sido rebautizado (negando así la identidad quingnam de sus constructores y a la cual podrían haber apelado), con nombres en una lengua aún más norteña: Utzh An, Fochic An, Ñing An, Ñain An, Tsuts An, etc. https://es.slideshare.net/slideshows/los-lambayecanos-no-son-mochicas-ni-mocheros/266562265 pag. 19
Old nameCurrent nameIntended meaningChayhuacChayhuac An or Quixmic AnChayhuac House or Beginning House UhleXllangchic AnEast House or Sunrise HouseLaberintoFechech AnWest House or Sunset HouseGran ChimúUtzh AnBig HouseSquierFochic AnNorth HouseVelardeÑing AnSea HouseBandelierÑain AnBirds HouseTschudiNik AnCenter HouseRiveroChol AnNew House or Final HouseTelloTsuts AnSmall House
Walled compound Tschudi The walled complex "Tschudi" is the greatest in illustration of the importance of water, particularly of the sea, and of the cult that surrounded it in the Chimu culture. The high reliefs of the walls represent fish, directed towards the north and the south (what can be interpreted as representation of the two currents that mark the Peruvian coast: that of Humboldt, cold, that comes from the south and the one of El Niño, hot, that comes from the north), waves, rombito (fishing nets), as well as pelicans and anzumitos (mixture of sea lion and otter).
This coastal society was governed by the powerful Chimucapac and was united by the force of a social control originated in the necessity of a strict management of the water, as well as by the external threats. The "Tschudi" complex had a single entrance and high walls up to twelve meters for a better defense, and was wider at its bases (five meters) than at its summits (one meter), in anticipation of possible earthquakes on the seismic coast.
Mausoleum In 2026, archaeologists uncovered a Chimú mausoleum in the Utzh An complex. It contained the remains of more than 30 individuals.
Buildings