By Marco Aquino Reuters - LIMA (Reuters) - A 4,000 year old temple, decorated with murals has been unearthed in northern Peru, announced the Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, head of the excavations.
The temple, located inside a larger ruin, includes a staircase leading to an altar and it is one of the oldest structures discovered in the Americas.
It lies in the valley of Lambayeque, on a site called Ventarron by scientists, not far from the archaeological complex of Sipan discovered in 1980 by Alva. But
Ventarron was built around 2,000 BC, long before Sipan.
"This is an old temple of about 4,000 years," said Alva, Director of the Museum Tumbas Reales (Royal Tombs) of Sipan, after announcing the results of carbon-14 dating at a ceremony north of Lima sponsored by the Peruvian government.
"What is surprising are the construction methods, design calf cramps architectural and especially the existence of murals that could be the oldest in the Americas," he said by telephone Reuters.
Lambayeque is located at 760 km from Lima.
Complex Sipan, administrative and religious center of the Moche culture, contained a tomb full of gold pain built 1,700 years ago for a pre-Incan king.
Peru is rich in archaeological treasures including the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in the Andes.
Until the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, the Incas were administered for several centuries an empire that stretched from Colombia and Ecuador, muscle pain north, which is now Peru and Chile in the south.
"The discovery of this temple reveals evidence suggesting that the region of Lambayeque was a major center of cultural exchange between the Pacific coast and the rest of Peru," concluded Alva.
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