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LIMA - A 4000-year-old temple filled with murals has been unearthed on the northern coast of Peru, making it one of the oldest finds in the Americas.
The temple includes a staircase that leads up to an altar used for fire worship at a site scientists have called Ventarron, says Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who led the dig.
It sits in the Lambayeque valley, near the ancient Sipan complex that Alva unearthed in the 1980s.
"It's a temple that is about 4000 years old," Alva, director of the Museum Tumbas Reales (Royal Tombs) of Sipan, said after announcing the results of carbon dating at a ceremony north of Lima.
"What's surprising are the construction methods, the architectural design and most of all the existence of murals that could be the oldest in the Americas."
Lambayeque is 760km from Lima, Peru's capital.
- Reuters
