Chimú Statecraft

The Center: Chanchan

1. At its greatest extent the Chimú state dominated the entire coast from present-day Lima to Piura near the present Ecuadorian frontier - the largest pre-European coastal polity.

2. The capital of the Chimú state, Chanchan, was a specialized settlement that housed the rulers of society, their retainers and the functions and architecture of central power. In this sense Chanchan was a precursor to the later Inca capital Cuzco and thus contrasted with the late Moche cities with their generalized populaces.

3. Chanchan was a microcosm of Chimú statecraft and incorporated in its major architectural centers of power - its so-called ciudadelas - the social, economic, technological, and political systems that organized and ran the state.

4. Chanchan comprised a cluster of 9-10 huge rectangular compounds, believed to have been the centers of all state authority. The latest of these adhered to a formal architectural plan and probably combined the palaces of rulers with their burial platforms, the homes of their secondary descendants, and the centers of economic and ceremonial/ideological activity. It is not known if the more generalized architectural patterns of the earlier ciudadelas integrated all of these functions or were their less formalized predecessors, indicating less evolved systems of power relative to the later period.

5. The “typical” architectural and functional plan of the later ciudadelas, and to a lesser extent the earlier, is as follows:

- Entry by single doorway into a huge “plaza. This plaza was probably used for the most public ceremonies and may have been the only areas of general, though limited, access.

- Areas of economic activity - storage rooms approached through elaborately frescoed corridors. U-shaped control stations flank these corridors and probably held officials who monitored passage to the more restricted areas of the ciudadela.

- Walk-in wells served the needs of the officials, retainers, and ruling elite who lived and worked in the ciudadelas.

- Living areas of the rulers.

- Burial platforms of rulers. These appear to have been accompanied by multiple burials of retainers, often female, and great quantities of status items

- “Annexes” attached to the later cuidadelas were probably the homes of secondary descendants of dead rulers who maintained the ceremonials and privileges of the rulers. This may have represented a type of “split inheritance similar to that of the later Inca rulers.

6. State functionaries of intermediate status lived and worked in the vicinity of the ciudadelas. The so-called Intermediate Areas held elaborate storage complexes, administrative areas, walk-in wells, and residential areas for this sector of the state bureaucracy.

7. Lower status residents of Chanchan lived in the peripheries of the town in densely packed residential sectors. It is here that the specialist craftsmen who produced the artifacts of power lived and worked. Their homes adjoined workshops of metallurgy, pottery production, textile making, and feather working.

Provincial Administration

1. Provincial Administration Centers

2. Rural Administration Centers.

3. Rural Agricultural Villages.

4. Fields, Roads and Canals.

These components were integrated in a well-organized system centered on large administrative centers that were the chief agents for state rule in each valley. From these centers provincial governors directed the political and economic government of their regions through rural control points connected by an elaborate road system that allowed full exploitation of the irrigated lands and to construct the large canals that united valleys into large economic production units.