Huge Hidden Chambers and Passageways Being Studied at the Chavín de Huántar Site in Peru

July 13, 2022

Archaeologists have found hidden passageways and galleries inside the Chavín de Huántar in Peru. These were probably used for religious rituals using psychedelic drugs. Sensory deprivation and religious chambers were in the larger galleries.

“These are stone-lined passageways, corridors, rooms, cells, and niches, big enough to walk through, roofed with stone beams.” Built in stages between 1200 BCE-200 BCE.

36 galleries and their associated passageways have now been found at Chavín de Huántar over 15 years of excavations. The latest network was detected only a few years ago and was not explored until this year. They were found in 2019. The complex was a center for the Chavin culture. The site is 10,000 feet high and the largest Chavin religious site.

Passageways led to a main gallery with two ritual stone bowls, one decorated as a condor. The two bowls were probably used to grind psychedelic drugs. 

There was a tradition in Chavín to inhale hallucinogenic snuff made from seed pods of the vilca tree, which contain a powerful hallucinogenic substance that includes dimethyltryptamine, or DMT.

Major excavations wil begin soon.

Live Science has the report here:
https://www.livescience.com/secret-passages-ancient-temple-peruvian-andes