Cochasqui Pyramid 9

0.0567°N, 78.3103°W.

Cochasqui Pyramid 9 in the Cochasquí Archaeological Park north of Quito on the equator in Pichincha Province, Ecuador — one of fifteen rectangular truncated platform pyramids built by the Cara (Caranqui) people between approximately 950 and 1533 CE, immediately before the Inca conquest of the region. Original base approximately 80 by 90 metres; original height around 20 metres on a stepped earthen platform with stone-faced retaining walls and a long ramp on the southern face. Excavated systematically by Ecuadorian archaeologists from the 1960s onward, including extensive work by Udo Oberem of the German Archaeological Institute. The site sits at 3,100 metres elevation directly on the equator and the principal pyramid axes are oriented to the rising and setting positions of the sun on the equinoxes — alignments that the equatorial latitude makes geometrically simple to construct. The Cara civilisation was absorbed by the Inca empire under Huayna Capac in approximately 1500 CE and lost its language and political identity within two generations of the Spanish conquest.

A pyramid built directly on the equator by a people whose entire written history was erased between two successive imperial conquests in a single generation.