Paradise Changed

An ancient Peruvian city stood at the crossroads of technologies

- Roger Atwood

SPRAWLING OVER 100 acres on Lima’s dusty northern outskirts, El Paraíso’s eight monumental structures were built with tons of quarried stone 4,000 years ago. French archaeologist Frédéric Engel gave the site its current name, “Paradise,” in the 1950s—seemingly ironic for a place so arid and inhospitable today. But what Engel and later excavators found so remarkable about El Paraíso is the way it witnessed the transition of some of ancient Peru’s most important cultural trends. It was the first major site to be laid out in a U shape, arms open toward the Andes, where the sun rose and where the Chillón River, its source of fresh water, originated. Earlier settlements had faced the ocean. El Paraíso’s innovative plan would dominate urban design in Peru for centuries afterward.