Casma

Casma is a city in the coastal desert of Peru, 330 kilometres northwest of Lima, the capital of Casma Province and the third most populous city of the Ancash Region, with an estimated 29,343 inhabitants in 2015, in the lower Casma Valley. Santa María Magdalena is its patron saint, celebrated on 22 July. Some of the largest prehistoric monuments in the world stand around the city in the Casma and Sechín valleys, including Sechín, Chanquillo, Mojeque and Las Aldas. In February 2008 German and Peruvian archaeologists at Sechín Bajo uncovered a stone and adobe ceremonial plaza dated to 5,500 years ago, the oldest known monument in Peru. The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo, from a complex of the fourth century BCE, form an artificial horizon that roughly spans the annual rising and setting arcs of the Sun and are interpreted as a sun cult calendar. Las Aldas, on the Pacific coast about 20 kilometres south of the Casma River, dates from 1800 to 1000 BC. The nearby coast has beaches such as La Gramita, El Litro, Punta el Huaro and Tortugas.