Pañamarca

Panamarca is the southernmost monumental Moche site in Peru, constructed atop a granite hill in the lower Nepena Valley and occupied c. 350-850 CE. The site features an imposing stepped adobe platform, large walled plazas, and is renowned for its vivid polychrome murals depicting priests, warriors, and supernatural beings. In 2024, researchers discovered the Hall of the Moche Imaginary, a seventh-century throne room of a female ruler with painted adobe throne, the first such find in Moche archaeology. An adjacent Hall of the Braided Serpents features pillars depicting intertwined snakes, warriors, and monsters.