Wak'a Pukllana

Wak'a Pukllana is an adobe and clay pyramid of seven staggered platforms, rising twenty-two metres in the Rímac valley on the central Peruvian coast. Its Quechua name joins wak'a, a shrine of a protector deity, with pukllana, a place of games or rituals.

Between about 200 and 700 it was the chief ceremonial and administrative centre of the Lima culture. Its priests built the pyramid to display power over the valley's water; plaza pits received offerings of fish and other marine produce. Wari materials and the elite tomb of the Lord of the Unkus show the shrine remained in use under Wari influence until about 1000.

After the Wari collapse the Ichma kingdom formed around 1100 and spread into the valley, keeping old wak'a in use. Around 1469 the Inca absorbed the Ichma, and the shrine entered the empire's network of sacred sites.