Tucume Huaca 1

6.5180°S, 79.8435°W.

Huaca 1 at Túcume in the Lambayeque Valley, Peru — one of the 26 platform pyramids of the Túcume complex, built between approximately 1000 and 1500 CE by successive Sicán, Chimú, and Inca occupants. Original base approximately 200 by 150 metres; original height 25 metres on multiple terraces. The structure is built of millions of adobe bricks faced in painted plaster — substantially eroded by 500 years of post-conquest weathering. Excavated by the Túcume Archaeological Project under Thor Heyerdahl, Daniel Sandweiss, and Alfredo Narváez from 1988 to 1994. The pyramid sits within sight of the much larger Huaca Larga and was used for elite residential and administrative functions during the Sicán and Chimú periods, with Inca-period offerings of carved stone llama figurines and Spondylus shells in the upper layers.

One of 26 pyramids in the largest adobe-pyramid complex in the Americas — a single ceremonial centre with more pyramidal structures than the entire Maya area, accumulated across half a millennium of successive Andean occupation.