10.6533°S, 77.8414°W.
Paramonga (also Paramunga) is a stepped adobe pyramid-fortress on the Pacific coast of Peru at the northern frontier of the former Chimú Empire, built between approximately 1100 and 1450 CE. The complex rises in four tiered terraces of compacted adobe brick on a natural rock outcrop near the mouth of the Fortaleza River, dominating the surrounding coastal plain. The structure was both ceremonial — the upper terraces preserved polychrome wall paintings depicting Chimú deities — and defensive, anchoring the Chimú border against the southern Inca expansion. Paramonga was incorporated into the Inca Empire by Tupac Inca Yupanqui around 1470 CE following the Chimú conquest. The site was first described by the Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León in 1553 and investigated by Max Uhle in 1903.
Paramonga is an adobe pyramid built on the border between two empires, whose painted upper rooms preserved their pigments through the desert centuries on either side of the Spanish Conquest.