THE GREATEST TEMPLE Chavin was incorporated in 1993 into the list of the monuments recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Site. It is one of Peru's most important archaeological monuments, both for its historical value and for its beauty and design. We know that it was started more than a thousand years before the Christian era. When the Spaniards arrived in 16th century it had already been abandoned for 2000 years; the site was covered by the remains of multiple reoccupations and nobody could see the ancient buildings we know today. Nevertheless, it remained famous. So much so that in 1616, Fr. Antonio Vazquez de Espinoza, a colonial official, made the following reference to Chavin: "Near the village of Chabin is a great edifice of stone right finely wrought; it was a sepulcher and sanctuary of the most famous of the pagans as Rome and Jerusalem are to us, where the Indians came to make their sacrifices; because the oracle of that place was justly famous and they came from al over the kingdom." Archaeology has confirmed this. Testimonials exist to its importance and to the presence of pilgrims arriving from very far away, from at least 1200 b.C. to around 400 b.C. The legend, which speaks of mysterious underground passages, some beneath the river, concerns a type of architecture that is rarely seen in America, consisting of a series of massive platforms in a form of a truncated cone containing underground galleries of different lengths, heights and arrangements. It is also certain that there are many entrances as well as a gallery that runs towards the river and then ends. This is not fantasy, archaeologists are discovering it. Recently archaeologists have discovered a long history that goes back before the origins of the great temples, when Peru was inhabited by hunters and gatherers who had no knowledge of agriculture or ceramics and art that characterize Andean civilization. Several yards below the ruins of the temples and living quarters are the remains left by these primitive people, characterized by stone spear and arrow heads. However it is also believed that the ancient inhabitants of Chavin, in the place they were living at the time of the great temples, carried on their "archaic" ritual up to the third century A.D., as can be seen in the "mythical" era of Kotosh and which were perhaps part of temples similar to those of this region. Chavin de Huantar is therefore rather more than a number of temples that were important in the millennium before the birth of Christ; it is a place that has been occupied by man for thousands of years. This is one of the few very ancient monuments that did not need to be "discovered" as it was sufficiently famous, despite being buried and in ruins, for the Europeans to know of its existence. No other place of its age was mention in the 16th century and afterwards. Those that are known now and date from the same period, were discovered only recently in the 20th century. The temples were undoubtedly the center of all activity; they had a series of auxiliary uses expressed in the platforms, terraces and open areas at different levels, connected one to the other by paths and stairways. Almost all the buildings and other areas were carefully and expensively built and decorated with stone carvings, columns, cornices, lintels, obelisks and sculptures, not to mention the walls and spaces forming a ceremonial area of great beauty adorned with the images of the deities and demons who inhabited the pantheon of the people of Chavin. Only recently has work been carried out on the buildings or spaces designed to meet domestic needs, underneath the homes of the current population and on the other side of the river Mosna. It should come as no surprise that they are equally elegant. It seems that the permanent inhabitants of Chavin were a few priests and their acolytes, whilst most were pilgrims who arrived at the site seeking guidance and carrying offerings of various types. They may have stayed in the area for long periods. The central part of the temples consists of a group pf platforms built over many centuries. The original nucleus seems to have been associated with the "atrium of the lance" from which platforms were built to form the so-called "castle" or main pyramid, as well as the "temple of the lance" -where the main idol was kept- and two adjacent terraces on the north side of the complex. From this group of large buildings, which are also the highest, terraces and open spaces on different levels extended to give the complex its final shape. The stone sculpture is the art that has made Chavin famous in modern times. In the 19th century "Raimondi´s Stela" was brought to Lima and in 1919 it was named "Tello obelisk". The largest stone sculpture, known as the "lance" is still on the site. The three show highly complex beings who are presumed to be deities. A large quantity of cornices, columns, carved stones and stone heads that appear to have been driven through the outer walls of the temple. The importance of Chavin is much more than simply the magnificence of its works of art. It was a place for the elite, capable of comsuming products from all over the area. It was not the product of a local population who had developed independently; rather it was the result of a progress of territorial integration between the people living from Cajamarca and Lambayeque as far as Junin and the valleys of Lima. But it was also the product of integration forced by political or militaristic mechanisms. It was a center of religious cohesion, whose power and origin should be looked for in the predictive powers and wisdom of its rulers, experts in Andean astronomy and other fields.