Quilter utilizes the Peabody's collection as a means to investigate how the Moche used various media, particularly ceramics, to convey messages about their lives and beliefs. His presentation provides a critical examination and rethinking of many of the commonly held interpretations of Moche artifacts and their imagery. It also raises important questions about art production and its role in this and other ancient and modern cultures. --

This multidisciplinary study analyzes the visual, linguistic, and cultural significance of the imagery used by the Moche in their ceramics and murals.

"This is the largest collection of Moche portraits that has ever been published. As one of the most remarkable groups of portraits produced by any ancient people, it will be of interest to all connoisseurs and scholars of the world's great art traditions, as well as to students of the Moche and prehistoric Andean peoples."--BOOK JACKET.

Archaeologists working in the Moche Valley of Peru have uncovered a number of tombs representing various cultures that flourished there prior to European contact. This book provides a full description of 103 such burials, spanning a period of more than 3,500 years. Each burial is documented with an accurate illustration of every artifact found, as well as details on the location, matrix, and construction of the graves, the individuals in the graves, and the placement of all the associated goods. This information constitutes an important resource for solving problems of ceramic chronology and style change. Age and sex data given for the burials will also enable scholars to establish status differences that existed in the pre-Columbian past. Finally, the authors have compared their sample with all the north coast burials previously reported, showing how their findings may be used to ascertain similarities and differences throughout the highland Andean region. Ancient Burial Patterns of the Moche Valley, Peru is the first diachronic study of burial practices for any Andean region. It not only demonstrates changes in funerary practices in the area but also provides insight into the nature of local cultural development. It will be useful to specialists in Andean and New World archaeology as well as to collectors of pre-Columbian art.

Adding an important new chapter to pre-Columbian art history, this volume is the first to assemble and analyze a comprehensive body of ancient Andean architectural representations, as well as the first that explores their connections to full-scale pre-Hispanic ritual architecture.

Renowned for their monumental architecture and rich visual culture, the Moche inhabited the north coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period (AD 100-800). Archaeological discoveries over the past century and the dissemination of Moche artifacts to museums around the world have given rise to a widespread and continually increasing fascination with this complex culture, which expressed its beliefs about the human and supernatural worlds through finely crafted ceramic and metal objects of striking realism and visual sophistication. In this standard-setting work, an international, multidisciplinary team of scholars who are at the forefront of Moche research present a state-of-the-art overview of Moche culture. The contributors address various issues of Moche society, religion, and material culture based on multiple lines of evidence and methodologies, including iconographic studies, archaeological investigations, and forensic analyses. Some of the articles present the results of long-term studies of major issues in Moche iconography, while others focus on more specifically defined topics such as site studies, the influence of El Niño/Southern Oscillation on Moche society, the nature of Moche warfare and sacrifice, and the role of Moche visual culture in decoding social and political frameworks.

Raises the analysis of Moche iconography to a new level through an in-depth study of visual representations of rituals involving sex, death, and sacrifice.

Propitiating the supernatural forces that could grant bountiful crops or wipe out whole villages through natural disasters was a sacred duty in ancient Peruvian societies, as in many premodern cultures. Ritual sacrifices were considered necessary for this propitiation and for maintaining a proper reciprocal relationship between humans and the supernatural world. The essays in this book examine the archaeological evidence for ancient Peruvian sacrificial offerings of human beings, animals, and objects, as well as the cultural contexts in which the offerings occurred, from around 2500 B.C. until Inca times just before the Spanish Conquest. Major contributions come from the recent archaeological fieldwork of Steve Bourget, Anita Cook, and Alana Cordy-Collins, as well as from John Verano's laboratory work on skeletal material from recent excavations. Mary Frame, who is a weaver as well as a scholar, offers rich new interpretations of Paracas burial garments, and Donald Proulx presents a fresh view of the nature of Nasca warfare. Elizabeth Benson's essay provides a summary of sacrificial practices.

Moche civilization flourished on the north coast of Peru from AD 200 to 800. Although the Moche had no writing system, they left a vivid artistic record of their beliefs and activities on intricately painted ceramic vessels, several thousand of which are scattered in museums and private collections throughout the world today. Unfortunately, nearly all were looted by grave robbers so their origin and context are unknown. In recent years, however, through a combination of archaeological excavation and stylistic analysis, it has been possible to identify more than 250 painted vessels from the site of San Jose de Moro. To date, this is the largest sample of Moche art from a single place and time. Thus it provides a unique opportunity to identify a distinct sub-style of Moche ceramics, and to assess its range of artistic and technological variation. Moreover, within the sample it is possible to identify multiple paintings by 18 different artists, thus elucidating the range of subject matter that an artist would paint, as well as the variation in the way he would portray the same scene. By discussing and illustrating more than 200 painted vessels from San Jose de Moro, this volume provides insights about a community of ancient Peruvian potters who shared a distinctive painting style and left a fascinating record of their achievement.

This volume accompanies a major international loan exhibition featuring more than three hundred works of art, many rarely or never before seen in the United States. It traces the development of gold working and other luxury arts in the Americas from antiquity until the arrival of Europeans in the early sixteenth century. Presenting spectacular works from recent excavations in Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico, this exhibition focuses on specific places and times—crucibles of innovation—where artistic exchange, rivalry, and creativity led to the production of some of the greatest works of art known from the ancient Americas. The book and exhibition explore not only artistic practices but also the historical, cultural, social, and political conditions in which luxury arts were produced and circulated, alongside their religious meanings and ritual functions. Golden Kingdoms creates new understandings of ancient American art through a thematic exploration of indigenous ideas of value and luxury. Central to the book is the idea of the exchange of materials and ideas across regions and across time: works of great value would often be transported over long distances, or passed down over generations, in both cases attracting new audiences and inspiring new artists. The idea of exchange is at the intellectual heart of this volume, researched and written by twenty scholars based in the United States and Latin America.