Description of the attraction
Church of San Pedro de Atacama is located on the eponymous square of the city of the same name. It is an important architectural landmark of the city and one of the oldest churches in the country.
There are documents showing that in 1557 there was a chapel on this site, in which the priest Don Cristobal Diaz de los Santos served. The current church was built on the site of a chapel dating from 1745. Measuring 41 m long and 7.5 m wide, the Church of San Pedro de Atacama resembles a huge ship that miraculously found itself in the Atacama Desert. The church has a spacious nave, transept and slender vaulted arches. The altar of the church, probably the only one of its kind in Chile, is made in the Baroque style and is divided by columns into three sections with niches.
To the west of the church was a bell tower with four bells, built in 1782. But in 1860 the tower was destroyed. At the end of the 19th century, a wooden bell tower was erected on this site, which was replaced by a stone one in 1964, during the next reconstruction of the church.
The main materials used in the construction of the church are stone and limestone. The altar and arches are carved out of stone. The roof is covered with thatch, and the walls are plastered with lime mortar.
The Church of San Pedro Atacama was declared a National Monument of Chile in 1951.
