Archaeologists working in Peru's Ica Valley have uncovered a ceremonial center belonging to the Early Horizon period, dubbed the 'Temple of the Sun-Vulture.' The structure features a large circular sunken plaza and a series of stepped platforms decorated with polychrome friezes showing anthropomorphic vultures with sun-disks on their backs.
A hidden cache beneath the main altar yielded intact gold pectorals and nose ornaments, suggesting the temple served an elite class of priest-astronomers who mapped solar movements. This find challenges existing timelines for the development of complex religious iconography in the southern coastal desert of Peru, predating several known Nasca sites.