Tag Archive for Moche

Petroglyphs of Cerro Queneto – Peru

October 8, 2025 Academics, Featured, South America No comments

This study – about the petroglyphs at Cerro Queneto – is part of a bigger project covering several sites in the neighbouring drainages of the Río Moche and Río Virú (northern Peru). The paper offers a review and inventory of two of the three rock art groups bordering the western fringe of the alluvial fan of the Quebrada de San Juan (part of the Virú Drainage). This is the first “complete” inventory of the two little-known rock art sites that my wife and I discovered in the area.

By  Maarten van Hoek Read more

El Vagón Violated (Peru).

September 6, 2024 Academics, Featured, Geoglyphs, Mines, Protection – Salvaguardia, Rock art SOS, SOS, South America No comments

This short paper reports the unexpected destruction and violation of an important rock art site – El Vagón – in the Moche Drainage of northern Peru. In 2019 I published a full account of this site, based on several surveys by my wife and me. In 2017 there was no destruction visible, but in August 2024 I found (via Google Earth) out that the site had been destroyed by heavy machinery. This short paper discusses the damage, often referring to my earlier publication. It is sad that the site survived from the Formative Period (2000-500 B.C.) up to at least 2022, and was then recklessly and shamefully violated and destroyed in a few days, apparently without any warning or any official archaeological survey. Permission should never have been granted!

By  Maarten van Hoek

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