Chimu kingdom and Chan Chan

Around 900 CE, on the desert coast of northern Peru, the Chimu kingdom (Chimor) arose in the Moche valley, with its capital at Chan Chan near modern Trujillo. Chan Chan grew into the largest adobe city in the Americas, covering about 20 square kilometers. Its core held about ten huge walled compounds, called ciudadelas, each probably built by a successive king as palace, storehouse and eventually tomb. Walls up to about 10 meters high were decorated with molded friezes of fish, birds and waves. At its height Chimor stretched roughly 1,000 to 1,300 km along the coast.¹²

The Chimu inherited the Moche tradition of irrigation, adobe building and fine metalwork, and expanded canal networks to farm the desert valleys, including an intervalley canal tens of kilometers long. Their metalsmiths worked gold and silver with great skill and their potters mass-produced black burnished ware. Around 1470 the Inca under Topa Inca Yupanqui conquered Chimor, took its king Minchancaman to Cusco and relocated many skilled metalworkers to serve the Inca court.²