In 1978 Izumi Shimada, a professor of archaeology at Southern Illinois University, began a multi-decade project to excavate along the coast of Northern Peru. The area contained many monumental constructions that hinted to an unknown culture from centuries ago. Over the years before it became an archaeological dig site, the area fell victim to extensive looting. Shimada was able to unearth tombs still intact and shed considerable light on the Sicán culture.

The Sicán people had a distinct social and political organization. They predated the better known Inca people by almost four centuries. The Sicán produced high quality glossy blackware ceramics and they were very skilled at molding and working gold, silver and arsenical bronze. Even though the archaeological dig has revealed much information, there are a lot of unknowns and with each day more is discovered.

Peru's Sicán National Museum displays the artifacts and knowledge gained from excavations in the Poma Forest National Historical Sanctuary. The Sanctuary covers a 60 km square area, including the capital of the Sicán culture in the La Leche Valley. The Sicán Archaeological Project was one of the largest sustained archaeological excavations in South America, one that took place over a period of almost 30 years.

So while you are staying in the new Hazelton Hotel, plan to take a walk down centuries of history at the Royal Ontario Museum's Ancient Peru Unearthed; Golden Treasures of a Lost Civilization. It will be a journey through time which very few have witnessed. For the first time on display in North America this exhibition is a once in a lifetime experience, not to be missed.

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