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This article discusses the development of the notion of archaeological heritage in nineteenth-century Peru, within the historical and socio-political processes that led to its rise as a modern nation-State. Unlike the many studies locating the origins of the basic principles and praxis of heritage in the early twentieth-century’s intersection of Peruvian archaeology and nationalism, this study argues instead that this period marked a major landmark in the course of several processes that had begun in the nineteenth-century. Throughout the early years of the republic, heritage, here conceived as a social cons.truct and as a process, underwent a formative century from three different perspectives: nationalism, the modern scientific outlook, and the role of tutelary institutions. This study concludes identifying two major foundational moments of archaeological heritage in contexts of nationalist enthusiasm stirred by political and intellectual elites: the rise of the Peruvian State (1821-1824) and the aftermath of the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). The paper likewise acknowledges that the origins of heritage and its political nature cannot be understood outside processes closely connected with modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]