Centuries before the Inca empire rose, other civilizations along the Andes and the Peruvian coast built cities, temples, and irrigation systems now largely forgotten. The film visits the ceremonial platforms of Tiahuanaco, raised near Lake Titicaca in the sixth century AD, and Chan Chan, the mud-brick capital of the Chimu that may have held 100,000 people in the eleventh century, its canal networks still traceable in the desert. Coastal fishermen are shown working the same waters in reed boats their ancestors used generations ago. Moche sites yield evidence of human sacrifice, painted wall reliefs, and mummification, while looters are followed on a nighttime excavation, their finds bound for pre-Columbian art dealers. Aerial shots reveal the Nazca lines cut into the Pampa del Ingenio, oriented to track the sun. The film closes at the tomb of the Lord of Sipan, with archaeologist Walter Alba, who led the dig, discussing what the burial revealed about Moche rule.