How accurate is this Peruvian tourism promotion video? (Peru Empire of Hidden Treasures)

by [deleted]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzMFpRp5pYo

in terms costume and historical settings

from the looks of it seems to be showing: Caral, Moche Fishermen, Norte Chinco Burial, Nazca Line Construction, Lord of Sipan, Manco Capac and Mama Occlo legend, crowning of Pachacuti, Inca conquest of Antisuyu, Topa Yupanqui's Pacific Voyage, Inca taking over Kuelap from the Chachapoyas

Qhapaqocha

Generally this is a pretty impressive short; they did their homework in a lot of the settings, cultures, and their costume. I'm glad Peru's Ministerio Nacional de Cultura took the time and effort to make this as accurate as they could - at face value, you can glean many different impressive cultures out of this video spanning millennia!

Now to nitpick the hell out of it.

The first scene, at Chavín de Huantar, depicts the stonecutter of the Lanzón carving out its facade from the single piece of rock, already in its place in the subterranean Old Temple labyrinths of the site. John Rick's and Silvia Kembel's extensive work at Chavín argues that originally, the Lanzón was placed in its location above ground, as one of the earliest monuments of the site. Later expansions of Chavín's ritual center would have encased the Lanzón, limiting access to the stela. This creates a neat narrative of the "entombment" of the Lanzón; folks have argued that monolith depicts a liminal deity that occupies the planes of both our earth and the watery underworld. If this is true, then in the ritual memory of the site the stela once occupied both of these places. Minor detail in the video, and arguable archaeologically, but still worth noting.

I particularly liked the depiction of the Nazca lines being constructed, though it's arguable whether they had direct connections to astronomy and constellations as depicted. Maria Reiche lived out on the lines and in Nazca for decades, documenting them, and she was convinced that many of them had alignments to the Pleiades and other constellations; however a lot of that has been de-emphasized in recent research, in favor of seeing them as connected to local mountains and water sources (important in the desert).

Also, when you thought the Incas were taking over Antisuyu (the adobe city with the boy grabbing his dad's hand), that's actually Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimu polity. They were one of the big contemporaries to the Inca, and I think it was Thupa Inca Yupanqui (Pachacuti's son) who conquered them by laying siege to the city and cutting off their extensive irrigated water supply.

Finally, why no love for one of my favorite groups, the Wari? They aren't in this film and kicked total butt in the mountains 800 years before the Inca were around. Maybe they were worried people would get them confused with the Inca? Anyway, I'm happy to expand on any part of this video here and there, this was more my reactions to them as I watched it.

davratta

I think the opening scenes are at Chavin de Huantar, not Caral, although Caral is rather close to Lima and gets far more visitors than Chavin de Huantar. I also notice one scene was filmed in Chan Chan, but close to that scene they show two people leaving the water. On subsequent viewings, this is probably their nod to the Manco Capac Mama Occlo legend. It does look like they are emerging from Lake Titicaca. The first time I saw it, I thought they were showing the legend of Nayamlap. All in all, I do not see any egregious errors in this short film. The short segment about the Nazca lines might even convince the fans of Ancient Aliens type shows to take a trip to Peru,