Chan Chan

Chimú tradition credits the great expansion to a grandson of the founding king, who around 1370 won the upper Moche valley and the valleys on either side. A century later the empire met a stronger one. Around 1470 Topa Inca Yupanqui besieged Chan Chan and cut the canals that brought its water; the king was carried off to Cuzco, and Chimú gold and silver went to adorn the Qorikancha. The Incas scattered Chimú families across their empire, and a city that had held 40,000 to 60,000 people dwindled. After Pizarro founded Trujillo nearby in 1535, Chan Chan was left to the treasure-hunters. Looters tore into its burial mounds, and one 16th-century record lists 80,000 pesos of gold taken from a single tomb.