Buried Civilizations of the Americas - Keith Kintigh

8-9. A Moche Priest's Tomb at Sipan: Context and Meaning in the Archaeological Record

Prior to the Early Intermediate Period (200BC-AD600; EIP) the North Coast had competing sub-valley and valley-wide political systems, pyramids and ceremonial centers
Moche State. During later Early Intermediate Period

First part of the EIP, Galinazo Group an urban sites with 30,000 rooms in the Virú Valley
Ca. AD 100 Moche is first coastal state; represents continuity with past and expansion of the state to encompass multiple valleys
State controlled coastal plain from Huarmey to Piura Valleys, ca. 373 miles, with the capital at Cerro Blanco in the Moche Valley 3.5mi inland
AD 500-600 state shows signs of stress (state contracts) capital moves from Cerro Blanco in the Moche Valley far north to Pampa Grande in the Lambayeque River Valley.
El Niño flooding ca. AD 600 destroyed Cerro Blanco; repaired then covered by sand dunes. Moche Valley people build Galindo farther inland
Collapse of Moche state ca AD 600-700

mostly adobe; administrative and ceremonial centers w/ pyramids; some fortifications & roads
Cerro Blanco in Moche River Valley

2 enormous pyramids, Huaca del Sol plastered and painted red, Huaca de la Luna, multicolored brightly painted interior rooms (not their names)
Huaca del Sol - Largest adobe pyramid in SA

130-160 tall; now 525x1116 feet at base only ½ to original size; Spanish looted it
Huaca is constructed 8 phases 143,000,000 bricks w/ 100 maker's marks. Labor tax - community required add a section
A few rooms on top of the mound

Huaca de la Luna, 50,000,000 bricks, also marked. Large rooms on top, frescoes

farming, hunting, fishing, gathering, trade; large variety of crops; deer & seal hunting elite,
dogs, parrots, monkeys as pets
complex canal systems
used reed boats: for fishing, trade and collecting guano from south

Lots of important ceremonial centers suggests a theocratic structure; one principality/valley?
Women appear to have low status; seen weaving
Classes

Tremendous differentiation gradations w/i elite marked by elaborate costumes.
For men tunic ends above knee, tied with decorated belt, skirt, small cap wound with cloth to form turban and tied with a plain scarf, variety of headdresses, large mantle
body painting and tattoing, notably knee spot
jewelry all parts of body

battles of people in similar costumes
what do we make of bird people, etc. fighting? ritual component?
associated with territorial conquest and/or acquisition of sacrificial victims: nude, rope around necks, hands tied behind backs
slavery

A few refer to Moche times
Chimu (Chimor, kingdom) LIP descriptions seem to apply to Moche, when viewed with respect to things illustrated on pots, e.g. accounts of witches and treatment
Account in 1550 of early period, which leaders chosen from sons or brothers & trained for role

Christopher Donnan, Fowler Museum of Culture History, UCLA, 125,000 slides of Moche artifacts
Materials

Metal, gold, copper, alloy. smelted, soldered, hammered, or cast, e.g. mace heads
Pyroengraved gourds
Textile
Wood

crosscut media
in drawings, faces always in profile, headdresses turned to face forward
small scale, 5-20 cm high,
relative size natural but important people larger & particular body parts are enlarged, e.g. head
thin objects turned toward viewer
distance, upper part of the scene and smaller
pose, body tilt, placement of legs: speed, running
dignity depicted by clothing, bowed heads
lots of humans with animal characteristics

Shows how plants and animals were used
Implements, e.g. reed (tule) boats
Dress, headdress
Small scale architecture open, closed buildings
Instruments
chewing coca; gourd with lime, taken out with "needle" and wiped on rim
shamanism; lots of items used in modern shamanism (healing) also appear prominently in Moche artistic Record; eg seal stones (found in stomach and depicted on pots); owls

ruler larger, w/rays from head, being presented with a goblet (copper, of blood?)
bird-person offers blood, holding disk
high status woman, long shirt, headdress w/ tassels
person with feline headdress
spotted dog
prisoner being sacrificed
presentation theme components seen alone

Does Moche art shows everyday life or is it ritually related? Moche art is not secular.

What would we expect for different kinds of societies, Band, Tribe, Chiefdom, State
Moche only 350 burials professionally excavated

Low status people in refuse heaps, no grave goods but other people with lots of artifacts
Brain surgery, trephination (cutting open the skull), perhaps treatment of blows by clubs.
Priest buried in Virú Valley, excavated by Strong & Evans 1947

Coffin, sacrificed boy (at right side) sacrificed robust man and 2 women and 2 llamas; face covered by mask; elaborate collar; 28 Moche IV pots; gourd bottles; feather fans; bird headdress; metal objects
had 3 staffs: 1 capped by an owl, showing old man w/ protruding canines, belt terminating in snake head, accompanied by boy at right side!

1991 San Jose de Moro in Jequetepeque Valley, royal woman with head tassels of silver/copper alloy & sacrifice ceremony goblets