Walter Alva | |
|---|---|
 Alva in 2011 | |
| Born | Walter Alva Alva 28 June 1951 Contumazá Province, Peru |
| Occupation | Archaeologist |
| Employer | Bruning Archeological Museum |
| Known for | Discovery of the Lord of Sipan's tomb |
| Awards | Orden El Sol del Peru |
Walter Alva (born 28 June 1951), born Walter Alva Alva, is a Peruvian archaeologist specializing in the study and excavation of the prehistoric Moche culture. He is known for two major finds: the tomb of the Lord of Sipan and related people in 1987, and 2007.
Alva was born on 28 June 1951 in Contumazá Province. [1] He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in archaeology.
Alva has worked for years at the Bruning Archeological Museum in Lambayeque, Peru. He advanced to the post of director there.
In 1987, Alva was called by police to investigate a site at Sipán, where huaqueros (grave robbers) had stolen artifacts from an archaeological site. Despite being ill with bronchitis, he made the trip. The robbers had discovered a crypt of a lord, filled with jewels and gold, and Alva knew it was significant. [2] Alva did most of the excavating without delay, as he was concerned that robbers might come back and cause more damage. As a result, he started digging without any funding or the support of the area police, with matters made worse as the result of the primary robber being killed by police. [2]
After further digging, Alva found, among other things, the undamaged body of a Moche lord. [3] From these finds, he and other scholars were able to determine that Huaca Rajada, a group of three pyramids once thought to belong to the later Chimú culture, were a part of Moche culture. [3] The findings were later described by the National Geographic Society as the richest intact pre-Columbian tomb in the Western Hemisphere. [4]
During many of these years, Alva was the director of the Bruning Archaeological Museum in Lambayeque, Peru.
In 2007, Alva discovered murals at a 4,000-year-old Peruvian temple in Ventarron. The murals, showing a deer caught in a net, are considered the oldest murals in the Americas. [3] Alva determined their age by the process of carbon dating. [5] The construction material that was used at the temple was not primitive. [6] As a result, Alva was able to show that the civilization was able to spread farther than originally thought. [3] He worked on the dig with his son Ignacio, who is also an archaeologist. [7]
The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Trujillo, Peru from about 100 to 800 AD during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state. Rather, they were likely a group of autonomous polities that shared a common culture, as seen in the rich iconography and monumental architecture that survives today.
Chiclayo is the principal city and capital of the Lambayeque region and Chiclayo Province in northern Peru. It is located 13 kilometers from the Pacific coast, 208 kilometers from the city of Trujillo and 770 kilometers from the country's capital, Lima. It was founded under the name of "Santa María de los Valles de Chiclayo".
Lambayeque is a department and region in northwestern Peru known for its rich Moche and Chimú historical past. The region's name originates from the ancient pre-Inca civilization of the Lambayeque. It is the second-smallest department in Peru after Tumbes, but it is also its most densely populated department and its eighth most populous department.
Lambayeque is a city on the coast of northern Peru and capital of the homonymous district and province in the department of Lambayeque. It is located 4.7 km from the city of Chiclayo and 13 km from the Pacific Ocean. It is an important cultural and educational center of the department as it houses some of the most important museums in the country, such as the Royal Tombs Museum and the Brüning Museum. It was founded in 1553 under the name of San Pedro de Lambayeque by order of the Viceroy Conde de Nieva.
The Cupisnique culture was a pre-Columbian indigenous culture that flourished from c. 1500 to 500 BC along what now is Peru's northern Pacific coast. The culture had a distinctive style of adobe clay architecture. Artifacts of the culture share artistic styles and religious symbols with the Chavin culture that arose in the same area at a later date.
Huaca Rajada, also known as Sipán, is a Moche archaeological site in northern Peru in the Lambayeque Valley, that is famous for the tomb of Lord of Sipán, excavated by Walter Alva and his wife Susana Meneses beginning in 1987. The city of Sipán is dated from 50–700 AD, the same time as the Moche Period.
Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The pre-Columbian era continued for a time after these in many places, or had a transitional phase afterwards. Many types of perishable artifacts that were once very common, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian monumental sculpture, metalwork in gold, pottery, and painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.
Peruvian territory was inhabited 14,000 years ago by hunters and gatherers. Subsequent developments include the appearance of sedentary communities that developed agriculture and irrigation, and the emergence of complex socio-political hierarchies that created sophisticated civilizations, technology and monumental construction.
The Lord of Sipán is the name given to the first of several Moche mummies found at Huaca Rajada, Sipán, Peru by archaeologist Walter Alva. The site was discovered in 1987.
The Sican culture is the name that archaeologist Izumi Shimada gave to the culture that inhabited what is now the north coast of Peru between about 750 and 1375 CE. According to Shimada, Sican means "temple of the Moon". The Sican culture is also referred to as Lambayeque culture, after the name of the region in Peru. It succeeded the Moche culture. There is still controversy among archeologists and anthropologists over whether the two are separate cultures. The Sican culture is divided into three major periods based on cultural changes as evidenced in archeological artifacts.
Located in the Chicama Valley, the El Brujo Archaeological Complex, just north of Trujillo, La Libertad Province, Peru, is an ancient archaeological site that was occupied from preceramic times. Considering the broad cultural sequencing, the Chicama Valley can be considered as an archaeological microcosm. Research at the site benefits from the favourable environmental and topological conditions for material conservation.
Tumi, is a generic term encompassing the many kinds of sharp tools utilized in pre- and post-colonial eras of the Central Andes region, Tumis were employed for a diverse set of purposes such as kitchen knives, agricultural tools, warrior or hunting secondary weapons, sacrificial knives, barber implements, pendants, or medical tools. In addition, the tumi form, in metal, was used as a type of coin. Pre-columbian Tumis were usually made of metal or stone.
The Brüning Museum, also known as Museo Regional Arqueológico Enrique Bruning de Lambayeque was inaugurated in 1966 and it is located in two blocks of the principal park in Lambayeque, Peru. It was based on the collections of Hans Heinrich Brüning, a German researcher.
Alana Kathleen Cordy-Collins was Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Diego. She was an archaeologist whose primary specialization was Peruvian prehistory.
Ventarrón is the site of a 4,500-year-old temple with painted murals, which was excavated in Peru in 2007 near Chiclayo, in the Lambayeque region on the northern coast. The site was inhabited by the Early Cupisnique, Cupisnique, Chavin and Moche cultures.
Christopher B. Donnan is an archaeologist. He has researched the Moche civilization of ancient Peru for more than fifty years, conducting numerous excavations of Peruvian archaeological sites. Donnan has traveled the world photographing Moche artwork for purposes of publication, recording both museum artifacts and private collections that would otherwise be unavailable to the public. He has published extensively, both academically and for the general public.
San Jose de Moro is a Moche archaeological site in the Pacanga District, Chepén Province, La Libertad Region, of Northwestern Peru. The site served as a ceremonial funerary complex between the years 400 and 1000 AD.
The Moche Route is a tourist destination that begins in the Peruvian city of Trujillo in what once was the seat of power of the Moche culture known as The Temples of the Sun and the Moon and then goes through a series of places that were part of the kingdoms Moche and Chimu. The route runs along the northern Peruvian mainly through the regions called La Libertad and Lambayeque. In this route, are found the major archaeological sites in this area of Peru, belonging to the Moche culture. Recently the MINCETUR has received the Ulysses Award for the promotion of this tourist route in 2011.
The Chotuna Chornancap Archaeological Complex is an archaeological site in San Jose district, Lambayeque Region, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north-west of Chiclayo, Peru of a set of truncated pyramids and compounds, highlighting two pyramids: Chotuna and Chornancap, the first of them believed to be related to the legend of Naylamp. Chotuna was a ceremonial center of the Sican culture, one of the cultures of Pre-Columbian Peru, which developed between the years 700 to 1300 AD. Later the Chimu and then the Inca occupation followed. In 2011 the tomb of the so-called priestess of Chornancap was discovered.
The Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum is a museum in Lambayeque, Peru. It contains most of the important artifacts found at Huaca Rajada by archeologist Walter Alva in 1987, including the Lord of Sipán and his entourage. The museum was inaugurated in 2002. The museum was designed to resemble the ancient Moche tombs.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
