A mural-decorated temple that may date to 4,000 years old is being reported from the coastal desert region of Northern Peru.
Some of the walls of the 27,000-square-foot site - almost half the size of a football field - were painted, and a white and red mural depicts a deer being hunted with a net.
Alva said the temple was apparently constructed by an "advanced civilization" because it was built with mud bricks made from sediment found in local rivers, instead of rocks.
"This discovery shows an architectural and iconographic tradition different from what has been known until now," said Alva, who discovered and is the museum director for another important pre-Incan find, the nearby Lords of Sipan Moche Tombs.
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