Thanks to the Archaeological Project of El Brujo, Huaca Cao turned from a shapeless mound to one of the most important ceremonial center in the Chicama valley. This Mochica pyramid is really a series of four temples one on top of the other, each one buried in a ceremonial way during five centuries, to give way to a new temple, a new era. The Mochicas buried the elite in this building —the most impressive of these burial being the Señora de Cao’s, the first female ruler ever discovered in Peruvian archaeology, who has astonished the world with her magnificent apparel, the refinement with which she was buried and her amazing state of conservation. The enigmatic tattoos covering her skin, preserved with cinnabar, inaugurated a new page in Peruvian history so far unknown.

In 1946 Junius Bird came from New York as part of the Virú Valley Project, in order to study what looked like a regular hill. There in Huaca Prieta, he discovered traces of the most ancient evidence of domesticated plants in Peru, as well as the remains of the first dwellings —semi-underground houses of pebble stone walls and roofs made of whale ribs— and everyday utensils such as baskets decorated with colored threads, cotton textiles, nets, decorated gourds and bone articles. By using the carbon-dating technique, Bird confirmed this evidence —which he dated around 2300 BC— was 1,500 years previous to those of Chavin.

A pit of 3.40 m. in diameter —40 steps going down as in a spiral staircase 12 meters until it reaches a water mirror— is among the most enigmatic constructions in the Archaeological Site of El Brujo. Possibly used for rituals and astronomical observations, the pit was buried solemnly; pieces of Gallinazo and Moche pottery were found in the filling and also the bones of 15 individuals. At the bottom, among other offerings, the remains of a man and one decorated whale vertebra were found. A second spiral pit was recently found.

Students from the National University of Trujillo found a Moche house of cane walls on top of an adobe foundation in this area. They also found burials corresponding to the Cupisnique period.

Two Mochica cemeteries, a funerary platform, a kitchen and a house were found in this area, as well a lot of earthenware jars —buried with the mouth of the jars at ground level—, which have given the area its name. Two of these were sealed; one contained a llama with only one leg, the other one, a human body without hands.

The remains of a church and a town built with European style, where archaeologists have found crosses, sacred scriptures, carved sandals and knives, speak to us of the oppression, the resistance and the encounter of two worlds in colonial times. The village was abandoned within the first three decades of the eighteenth century. The inhabitants of Magdalena de Cao say it was because “the huaca started eating their children”, and tell stories about treasure wagons swallowed by enchanted lagoons, and about a golden bell which emerged out of one the huacas and disappeared in the sky.