466 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 2 



Prof. Marshall H. Saville suggests that the wall may have been 

 erected by the Chimii or pre-Chimii occupants of the Santa Valley to 

 prevent the neighboring tribes on the north, or possible invaders 

 from the north, from gaining access to the river where, by damming 

 or otherwise diverting the stream, they could cut off the water supply 

 from the great aqueducts, still largely in fairly good repair, that 

 irrigated the densely peopled Santa delta. In connection with this 

 suggestion may be cited Montesinos's account that the Inca finally 

 conquered the Great Chimii by cutting off his water supply.'^ It 

 may have been the supply to the Santa Valley that was cut off by the 

 Inca, since Montesinos does not state which valley it was in which 

 the Chimii finally capitulated, while Garcilasso de la Vega" says 

 that it was the Santa Valley, although he makes no mention of the 

 cutting off of the water supply. 



Dr. Julio C. Tello, director of the archeological museum of the 

 University of San Marcos and a leading authority on the Inca and 

 pre-Inca civilizations, states in reply to a letter addressed to him 

 by the American Geographical Society that not only had he never 

 heard of the wall until it was reported by the Shippee-Johnson expe- 

 dition but that he has been unable to find anyone among the owners 

 of the large haciendas in the Santa Valley who knows anything of it. 

 Doctor Tello reports that he has discovered several walls similar to 

 the Great Wall of the Santa Valley in valleys south of Lima, al- 

 though none of them is more than a few kilometers in length. He 

 also mentions the wall between Trujillo and Chicama described by 

 Doctor Olson, but offers no suggestions as to the possible purpose of 

 this or others of what he describes as the " mysterious walls of 

 Peru." 



It is still hard for us to believe that we have actually made a new 

 discovery of such evident importance in a region whose ruins have 

 been for more than 75 years the subject of frequent and careful 

 explorations by a long list of noted archeologists, many of whom 

 have made their reputations there. From the air, the wall and 

 its forts are so striking a feature of the landscape that it is difficult 

 to understand how they could have so long escaped notice from the 

 ground. That this is the case seems less astonishing, however, when 

 one considers that, even though the wall were noticed at its western 

 end where it crosses the delta of the Santa River, it would appear 

 only as one more wall in a region filled not only with the ruins of 



5 Montesinos, Fernando, Memorias antiguas historiales del Peru, translated and edited 

 by Pliilip Alnsworth Means, Hakluyt Soc. Pubis., ser. 2, vol. 48, p. 48, London, 1920. 



" De la Vega, Garcilasso, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, trans- 

 lated and edited by Clements R. Markbam, Hakluyt Soc. Pubis., ser. 1, No. 45 (2 vols.), 

 vol. 2, pp. 106-201, London, 1871. 



