Along the southern coast, the Paracas culture (c. 400 b.c.-a.d. 400), wrapped in mystery, is famed for its textiles, doubtless the
finest ever loomed in pre-Columbian America. Paracas culture influenced the early Nazca culture located in five oasis-valley
farther south. In the Titicaca Basin there developed about a.d. 800 the great Tiahuanaco culture. Its capital and ceremonial
center at the southern end of Lake Titicaca was built of massive worked stones held together with inset bronze projections
(tenons). The famed Sun Gate, constructed of massive stones, with its sun god weeping tears in the form of many animals,
found its way, as a motif, into all Andean and coastal cultures. Further north, at Huari, close to present-day Ayacucho, the
Tiahuanaco theme of the weeping god was developed even futher. It was from here, presumably, that a combined
religious-military invasion was launched down the Pisco Valley to the coast. From the years a.d. 1000 to 1300 the Tiahuanaco
Empire dominated most of the coastal cultures--evident in the recurring motif of the weeping god. When the empire collapsed,
the suppressed local political units sprang into new life and evolved into local empires. The greatest (and the contemporaneous
rival of the Incas) was the kingdom of the Chimus--Chimor (1300-1463) with its capital at Chan-Chan (near the present-day
coastal city of Trujillo). Chan-Chan was 8 square miles (20.7 sq km), with irrigated gardens, immense step pyramids, and
stone-lined reservoirs. The empire was a center of large-scale weaving and pottery industries. It possessed a good
communications system and in time it came to rule over 600 miles (960 km) of the Peruvian coast.
Such was the cultural inheritance of the Incas. They were the heirs rather than the originators (as they claimed) of Peruvian
culture. They were organizers--but incomparable organizers.