 He studied a wide range of archaeological subject matter across that trajectory, including Near Eastern Archaeology, Ethnology, Anthropology, Archaeology, and Archaeology of the New World. Peter was involved in the investigations at Cerro Sechin back in the 1980s. A little while ago, and he worked there for quite some time and his doctoral dissertation was done on Cerro Sechin. Then there was what seems to be an intervening period in his life when he did a number of interesting things, like being basically the director of archaeology. No, not the director, but the responsible of the field works. That's as good from my point of view. For the city of Berlin, covering Paleolithic to Hitler. No, to the wall. To the wall. Okay, even better. Let's jump over. Then from there, he went back to Peru to work at Cerro Sechin Bajo for eight years. His studies there culminating in 2014. He said the act of writing up the major reports for that before I think contemplating going back. But I'll leave him to tell you that stuff. And then it's a great pleasure to be able to present Peter Fuchs to you and for him to present to us. And let's take it away. Peter. Well, first I have to thank the Institute of Indian Studies for inviting us and permit us to present our last results. The problem is only that we were still rather analog and didn't take the right version of our prepared PowerPoint presentation. Thanks to Google, we discovered one which is a little bit older. And I see this PowerPoint since more or less five years ago. And well, I would beg you to permit me to have the speech in Spanish. Because in Spanish I'm a little bit more familiar. And I think for you it's also easier to hear more or less Spanish than a woodcut like English. Well, let's continue to see how it works on the other side. Do you want to? There. Well, I think everyone is in a good shape with the geography of Peru. The Valle de Casma is more or less 370 km north of Lima. And the Valle itself is formed by two rivers, the river Seppchin and the river Casma. And the Valle is relatively small and doesn't have water all year long. But despite these circumstances, it is the place of a monumental development in the beginnings of the fourth and third and second millennia before Christ. Just thinking of these places like Seppchin Alto, Cero Seppchin, Mojeke, Waka'a and for a few years also in this line is Seppchin Bajo. It's the area of study. It embarks more or less about 40 and so hectares throughout the area. And we have occupation up to Chimú, but it starts with a formative monument, the Waka'a of Seppchin Bajo. The first studies were done by Julio Cetello, who included it in his summary of the Valle. Then there are short visits of Rosa Fum, of the Posorskis and many others, including Corrie, for example, Thompson. And we started the work in this Waka'a in 2000. It's a view from the other side. This is a reconstruction of the last, in 2014, of the last constructive situation. It's the main construction, an annex and through the work of the investigations, we have found other buildings. The building 1, which is below the building 2 and the building 4 and the building 3. In total we have four buildings that temporarily embark the time from 3,500 a.C. to 1,400 a.C. We have a constructive sequence of more than 2,000 years in the site. The first construction, here we are cleaning, we see these signs of circular squares. We have a platform where the lines are seen, we have amplifications of the same platform and here we have a slightly smaller platform. The first constructive moment is this platform built on a floor that is almost all in the area of the other three buildings. This floor is almost to prepare the natural surface of the site. You put a layer of mud to have a surface where you can build. The first construction is this platform. It has excavated only one part, about 30 x 20 square meters in total. It should be more or less this area. It is much larger, we do not know the exact extensions because they are below the other buildings. This is the main platform, it has more than 2 meters, 2.30 meters in height. This stone has been placed on a mortar of mud and the light is not very much in the middle. The access to the platform is through several stairs. There are basically two types of stairs, one that is cut off on the platform itself and the other that are covered, where the stairs are placed forward. On the platform itself we have fumes, well, they are elaborate fumes, they are not only places with a bit of fire, but they are well elaborate fumes and also with other fumes. Here is another image, quite far away, and the second platform and on this second platform is placed a wooden platform, it is this one, and it is seen with this stairs. The platform has a diameter of 14.20 meters and it has a height of 2.20 meters too. Then, as in the second moment of construction, according to the modification, it is placed inside the first platform, it is placed in the second platform. Then, the third construction moment is to cut off the two halves of the two circular squares, cut them to give place to the construction of a rectangular square. And as in the fourth construction moment it is placed in a circular square inside the rectangular square. And to finish, it is placed in a fourth circular square inside the third one. But we must mention that it was always in function only one square, the other squares were in the middle, destroyed, but not in a barbaric way, if it was not a very destructive destruction, with a lot of care, they wanted to preserve the remains of the previous constructions. They did not want to destroy everything, they wanted to preserve and maintain certain parts of the previous constructions to combine the old constructions with the new ones. Here you can see a moment of excavation, how they have been preserved very well throughout the architecture that is going to be completed. And this is important, that the previous constructions are carried out to give place to a new construction, but without destroying it. Or without destroying it, only until a necessary moment. But always preserving, well, this can be almost defined as a constructive memory inside a cultural memory. Now the different constructive moments of the first building. And now we have 15 dates, from 3700 to 2900 for all these constructions. And the dates are not full, but they are from the fires here, from the fires in the wide lateral lands, and basically from the enclosures, because the enclosures are also organic material, but it is always material of short life. And that is, for us, we are always preferable to take samples of organic remains, but always of plants with life, or parts of plants with very short life. Because if we don't have, sometimes the problem is that we have a tree that is already 300 or 400 years old, and then it falsifies our dates. We have to say that, well, here you can see the signs, which are more or less for this temporal position, they are more or less, and we have to say that these are our dates. We still have here, for the first construction, we still have six samples, which in this table are not included, because the table is about six or eight years old, so it is finished, because if you see it is ours, we will have it brought. Then, what is interesting, is that it will cover the whole construction, then it will be filled, and it will be covered with a layer of mud, which is now almost the platform, and all the modifications are now covered with a seal, with a seal of mud, to give place to a second structure on top of a view. This is the second one, on top of it, this is the floor of the platform, and as you can see, a well preserved floor for the rest of the constructions that were part of the first building. Then, the rest of the first building were included in the second building, this is the stairs, the central entrance of the second building, very well, these are the structures of the first building of the platform, and then it was filled, and it was covered with layers of mud, and always inside the layers there was also a layer of mud, here another layer, another layer above, so we have, I don't know, in the modern constructions of the characters, there is this technique of putting different layers to make a better compatibility of the region. And this is an experience, let's say, technical, architectural, that those people in the fourth century already had. As you can see, the moment of the construction of the second building is on top of the platform, as you can see, and the platform is very well preserved. And of all these layers of mud, always, in all these layers there were always fugitives, and up there we have layers of these layers, and they are almost the same as all the layers of the first structure, of the first building, indicating that the construction itself of this building was carried out just after 3,000 BC. Also, this building has two phases, it is a construction of more or less 38 or 39 meters, with round corners, the maximum height we cannot verify, but even the floors are more or less always like 5 meters, and the walls here can be put at least 2.5 meters, so almost, for the second structure, we reach an height of almost 8 meters, and it was made with stone, with stone walls and put in a mortar or barrel. And in the final stage, in all the walls. And the structure, or the internal structure, are three rows of three quarters, here is the central entrance, which we had earlier in the view with the previous ones, and the central row of the quarters has the double dimension of the sides. The problem now is the function of this building is a little complicated to verify for us, because we have a second phase that consists of the implementation of a model of walls, also with round corners, but with internal niches. And this second, yes, this second phase, we can sign, but we have to sign 1500, 1600, before Christ. So, between the basic construction and the second phase, we have a certain time lapse. And we were not, let's say, able to take out more early dates of the same construction, because several times it was renamed the enlucid. And we have always taken the samples of the enlucid, because they had wooden stands between the enlucid itself, for example, on the corners of the niches or on the corners below to maintain the corners of the buildings. We had to put a plastic thing to defend or to keep the corners so that they do not break. And they put almost, they are small in size of a cigarette. They always put it to facilitate the construction of the corners. And also to control the thickness of the enlucid. Because we have also found one of these stands with a pita. So it is a very modern type as it is nowadays with the pita and to control the thickness of the enlucid. The enlucid were also very elaborate. They had, at least in the last phase of the construction of the structures they always had 5 layers of different composition. In the first layer we had a much thicker material and with each layer that was put as enlucid the amount of the thick material was reduced until finally there was only a slip of water and a bit of mud or of color. And also for the process for the enlucid as it was already about 8 between 8 and 10 cm for it to dry more easily they put material almost like eggs dry in the mud or in the enlucid just put in the fresh enlucid and inside the fresh enlucid they put the eggs of dry mud so that everything in the enlucid dries more evenly and it does not crack so the enlucid had a almost classic quality and after a lot of time. Well, a view of the internal structure this is a very posterior wall through a chimney or through a tunnel. The niches for example here they are always at a height of about 1.7 meters there they start the extension is about 1 meter the height we don't know but we know that they were covered by niches so we can say that on top of the ceiling of these niches the wall was still there so we reached a height the end of the building up to 8 meters and this is a reconstruction and here you can see the original situation they went out they went out some graffiti among them animals also graffiti in geometric forms but the most interesting is this it is a animal composed the body a a hand a feline style the mouth feline when it is a composition here we also have a human head and looking a little in the local iconography is a statue of the algae a statue of the falcon and finally looking at the chameleon just as an idea but these graffiti were then people left the site when they abandoned it then the third building is under the building the last building the last building and cleaning the access to the last building these are the stairs they live up cleaning these stairs completely destroyed and they gave only two stairs cleaning the situation we have found a previous entrance we have not realized that it was another building only we have seen that there is another access but finally we have seen that it is a previous building has been cleaned relatively open the access has an extension of 10 meters the walls are the internal height is 70 centimeters the external height of the wall to the floor with the stairs is 1.50 meters and a patio opens more or less of 29 by 28 meters but a very open patio and this patio was filled and this is the view for example here you see mansions and here there are mansions it is a layer of some dry material and a little bit better we have taken our material we have sent it to Risto to the Institute of Eveshi and we communicated as the result of the analysis that was about Chicha and to complete the issue within this building material was found burned and cut along with the flames that we had it indicates that they ate well they took well and sacrificed Chicha and this are the remains so it was a ritual to bury a structure to build the new building and this reminds me of the archaeology of the Middle East in the old Mesopotamia we had the same structure but we know very well the texts there is a collection of texts of constructive rituals called constructive rituals and these rituals are often dedicated to a goddess called Pula and Pula is the goddess of the and they had within the rituals that we know for writing they always put old buildings in the new building and we we in the full of the building we have loved parts of the previous buildings so according to our interpretation it is a ritual combining the of a ritual construction to bury the new building and also an archaeological contribution to the discussion of the movement or renovation of temple it is seen that there is no discussion but it is the same process it is buried the old building but only to give birth to the other and it is always combined we also have in the architecture also in the classical we have the custom to put other architectural remains of other buildings and these things are put in the Fajara it is called the school it is a custom of the human today to put remains of previous concessions just to the history of the architecture and on top have found remains of figurines of Baron Cozino and in the rites of Mesopotamia we do not only have the school and we must see the old building for the other but also we have the custom to put figurines it is a very interesting parallel it does not have to say anything but as we know the texts it is very interesting the concession that goes above is a concession really monumental it is a concession of more or less 130 meters per 150 the concession is a concession that is not so much you have to see that it is 8 years that passed about these preconceptions but we have to forget these niches in a first phase with your team we had only two long parts of almost 30 by 70 meters and separated by a level of more or less 6 meters then thinking of the open construction of the previous buildings the platform is a very open construction controllable visually well controlled the construction this open with the access of 10 meters and with very low walls it is also a very well controlled construction visually but here there is a change you see a concession of two levels and we think that this was the public part and then there is a fairly high ladder to lead to a higher level and in the first phase we had in the walls we had railways let's see these are still niches of the second phase thank you the niches here have different have different thickness this one has for example an extension of 1.70 meters the height is not known in the other buildings are more girls it is 1 meter it is not known and before the imposition of the walls to see of the walls with the niches this corner with the niches has a wall with rail here we are a little more clear it is about several figures in total three put in position with extended but a little flexed the basic figure is the same all the people have the same objects in the hand only the part of the head is a little different you always see the mouth and the rest of the head is iconographically quite complex interesting are the things that carry in the hand a weapon and here we have an object that looking a little closer is a straw this is the lips of the straw with the straw heads and thinking of the straw can be seen from the same straw comes out and we have a lot of material but material not contextualized with the same themes and taking the discussion yesterday who made the beautiful lips we can ask these beautiful lips also as they are very formal there are icons so it is not done by chance on top comes the technique it is seen this is not done one day or the other and it is not learned one day or the other if they are not artisanal specialists together with consultive specialists they are architects but there must be let's say other specialists who in our opinion were ritual specialists who knew what they wanted to draw on their walls and I suppose that these sites these monuments were specialized for at least to do these things and thinking in sites more north where there is a lot of ceramics here there are very few ceramics while ceramics is known but we do not let's say material or ceramics to do anything and I can imagine to ask you this question how it was organized we have for example Christian clothes 9th, 10th, 11th where we had and they preserved almost all the science of the classical past the texts were the only ones who knew how to write and the monasteries were also specialized in for example, the assistant assistants who were specialists in agriculture they cultivated their crops they cultivated the lands with high techniques not known in these areas we have the Dominican we have other monasteries who were specialists in construction who knew the crops and also they were almost architects and many of these cathedrals had schools of Albanians who worked who worked only for the monastery or for the church and we also have an industry of crosses of paraphernalia of dresses they were also made in crosses and at least they worked under the control of the cross or the institutions of the church and this would be an idea for me how to organize this artistic work of ceramic production in these places where I'm with Chavino and others just as an idea just to look at other corners of the world to have other ideas these are the dates of the second building also here we have more AMS which are a little more exact I'm sorry but it's not the exact thing well to add the discussion of the dates the first building is between 3000 let's say 2900 up to 3600 the second building almost at the same time the third building was built between in the century between century 17 and 18 the last building was built in the century 17 and they are the difference in time between the third and fourth building is not very high we have to do also with the AMS we have to do new additions now the physical make models of type to adjust the exact dates regarding the ceramics leaving the last building we have found several columns in front of the we have found the same ceramics in the century in the century and the ceramics is more or less in the 1600s the most temperate of these sites and it is a typical brown in short for the discussion of the function of the buildings in the site is relatively clear we have as the first installation or as the first building the open platform which is part of the social life the platform is almost a scene is needed for let's say for the rituals to arrange a social life on top of the platform where all the people can share what is happening on the platform they are the same they can be recordings of songs of myths basically common for all people the second building is a little difficult because there is a temporal difference the third building is still open and also for us it would be a common while the last building has its two levels is a hierarchical there is a level of 6 meters a part limited and all the accesses also have to limit the access on the side to make it more comfortable and apparently there is a system there are channels of 10 to 10 that are made inside the walls and sometimes there are more than 2 meters to put a stick to take out the stick to close the access so this the last building for us is clearly a hierarchical and indicating social changes before there was an open public and everyone could share and inside the architecture the last building there is no access for everyone to the whole building to the second level it is no longer open and it is very visible that there is a social division and at the same time we have the railways railways and there is a system of ritual there is iconography that people know and indicates the existence of ritual specialists so there is a change and this is very understandable in the structural sequence of is very understandable but when the image is much more complicated the site is 1 km 800 meters as a wall there is a direct view in the site we also have different constructive moments we have a bar building also of different phases but at least of the same constructive material and we have decoration here there are two there are two large fish internally there is a central camera with the fillings and here we have revives is the central camera with the fillings are the fish fish and we have columns with characters that fall below this is a sacrifice indicating a sacrifice is the head of the character that falls the head is short and goes hungry and below the fish with the mouth open to receive the body that falls below so this is the dates that we have to make between 2000 of the bar building between 1200 to 2000 and in this time it is a little bit difficult to compare it with the lower concept for example so it seems that we have in the same bay different centers with different messages after the bar building the wall of the engraved stones that we know the engraved stones I suppose you are going to know the engraved stones is the description of two processions that is the posterior door where two military or military characters will be on their side and they form two processions of those dignitaries that is the type that lives and for 10 meters walks one of these and between them there are rows of stones with different motifs with heads with parts of the body that you can use legs but always there is one of these dignitaries if you could let's say discuss this as a or two processions for me it is a portrait of an oligarchy that is a monument to impress the group that they are let's say the specialists or they are the Egypt in this moment and the stones with the motifs with the heads indicate what is going to happen if it doesn't work inside inside this system we have different very different ideas in the two buildings or in the two places below it would be bad because of the constructive materials the walls and stone we have the translation of the squares we have the temple and the monument and the composition of the architecture we have the egyptians in the communities we have an architecture oriented towards it and it always also indicates something of dualism in the societies and we have here these sergents we have almost the same we have the same constructive material we have the same even the temple we have the same ritual architecture we have the same or let's say traditional apparently similar but compared to sergents it is much more realistic there are no sergents in sergents everything is very clear and it is a narration or description of rituals we have in the first moment a description of rituals there is a human sacrifice in front of the martyrs and then we have the theme of the procession and and also that also tells us something about the social organization which is dual it seems that there are many in the site because there are two processions in sergents and indicating that what was very simple in the first view looking only with a site that is very close the situation is much more complex and much less understandable to a level of social development different architectural developments different artistic developments between communities but only because of the existence and sometimes because of the coexistence of the different sites the image is very difficult only taking all the monuments the city is full so the discussion just now I think to start we are not in a moment to see something we do not have the ideas because with more excavations and more material sometimes you can make a process also in the discussion through meetings like this to improve our understanding well, I have to discuss again this presentation quite chaotic I have simplified it so beautiful but I will send this in a way a total version to discuss in its specific hours thanks for your attention and again excuse me we are a bit late in the hour that we are expected to be if there are some pressing questions I think we can probably entertain one or two but I am not trying to discourage you on the other hand we have no reception waiting so are there questions? Christine where is this door? and the door that has two signs that show the structure where is the door? the door, yes this where is the place? there is a gallery and it looks very good in the gallery here is the gallery and three or four meters down there we have the entrance when you are in the center are you a bit afraid of the light? no, no who is in the center? look this is the center the gallery we are going this way this is the entrance and the door is this way similarly exactly on the line I think it is going to attract you less have you studied the work of Theo the site in the 30s because there are spectacular points of how they want to put the stones in the place well I have not mentioned that there was more or less exactly in the 13th century there was a region that covered the whole site and it resulted that it was due to the pressure of the materials almost all of the line was a bit dismantled it was and the girls the most girls like the heads were more advanced and the reconstruction the idea of what it was well, the big ones are more or less in their site they had to put it more or less in vertical position and the girls thought very simple the stone that is farthest from the wall is up so that was the technique and well you have to trust Theo more than in previous renovations because Theo had a good eye and sure that well, let's say with the temporal position he had his problems in favor of Chavin and before Chavin in his system it was not possible in a certain cultural development because everything is in the cultural matrix and as we already know well the wall is closed in 1900 more or less before Christ but at that time and we found the site only in this site was only visible university what questions do you have? yes some of the people but only fragments of common correspondence in Tsenshinpapo we have very few others they left a very very clean site and later they left the site the site was no longer renovated there was almost no construction on top but there were about 140 entire and almost half of them on top of the first structure so that indicates that the site was in let's say in the memory that it was let's say worthy to receive the dead and this is until now well, unfortunately we don't have because we have in the same site there is a drawing there is a stone more or less of that height from where they formed they made it very beautiful we have also found a wooden box that we know for example of the of the mochita mochita there there is a drawing or there is a a guapo with the ceremony of a curator the muhu is there with the sick person and he has a box with stones I don't know, it is well known in the book of Doran and this box we have found buried in the surface and in the style of the statue of Chimú but they put it as sometimes the curlers do it today they put the box as well but it is forgotten the questions are very good we have to tell you so much if this is failed, I would like to see you exist because you are spectacular yes, you are also like that