Pachacamac Painted Temple

12.2580°S, 76.9020°W.

The Painted Temple at Pachacamac in the Lurín Valley south of Lima, Peru — a Wari-period or Ychsma-period platform pyramid at the great pilgrimage sanctuary of Pachacamac, built between approximately 600 and 1000 CE before the later Inca-period Temple of the Sun was constructed at the same complex. Original base 90 by 70 metres; original height 12 metres on four terraces, with the entire surface originally covered in painted plaster of red, yellow, blue, and white pigments depicting marine animals, geometric step-frets, and the distinctive Wari-style staff-bearing deity figures. The painted plaster has substantially weathered since the Spanish conquest but pigment traces remain visible across major sections of the building's surface. Excavated by Max Uhle in 1896 and continuously by Peruvian and international missions since. Pachacamac was the principal oracle of the central Peruvian coast and one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in pre-Inca South America.

A Wari-period pyramid covered in painted murals, in a sanctuary whose oracle was consulted by pilgrims from across the Andes for more than a thousand years before the Spanish arrived.