The Iglesia de Caspana is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

located in the locality of

Caspana Caspana is a Chilean village located 85 km northeast of the city of Calama, in the gorge carved by the river that shared its name and that is a tributary of the Salado River. Agricultural terraces form part of the landscape of the area. Its ...

, in Calama,

Antofagasta Region The Antofagasta Region ( es, Región de Antofagasta, ) is one of Chile's sixteen first-order administrative divisions. The second-largest region of Chile in area, it comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla. It is bordered t ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. Built in the 17th century, it was declared a

Historic Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

, on July 6, 1951.

History

Its construction date is estimated to be in the first half of the 17th century, which is based on a chronicle that dates back to 1641 where the church is mentioned. The original structure of the church was modified by the addition of a

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

on the front facade in 1862 and an annex on its southern side in 1975.

Description

The church is made of stone with

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

mortar, with a

timber roof truss A timber roof truss is a structural framework of timbers designed to bridge the space above a room and to provide support for a roof. Trusses usually occur at regular intervals, linked by longitudinal timbers such as purlins. The space between each ...

made from cardón and chañar. It has a narrow and elongated

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, a choir gallery on the entrance and a

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

. The detached bell tower contains two bells, and is built of stone and mud.

References

Roman Catholic churches in Chile 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Chile {{Chile-church-stub