Moche culture

The Moche cultural sphere is centered on several valleys on the north coast of Peru in regions La Libertad, Lambayeque, Jequetepeque, Chicama, Moche, Virú, Chao, Santa, and Nepena.[6] It occupied 250 miles of desert coastline and up to 50 miles inland.[7]

The Huaca del Sol, a pyramidal adobe structure on the Rio Moche, was the largest pre-Columbian structure in Peru. It was partly destroyed when Spanish Conquistadors looted its graves for gold in the 16th century. The nearby Huaca de la Luna is better preserved, with many of its interior walls still filled with many colorful murals and complex iconography. The site has been under professional archaeological excavation since the early 1990s.

Other major Moche sites include Sipan, Loma Negra, Dos Cabezas, Pacatnamu, the El Brujo complex, Mocollope, Cerro Mayal, Galindo, Huanchaco, and Pañamarka.

Their adobe huacas have been mostly destroyed by looters and natural forces over the last 1,300 years. The surviving ones show that the coloring of their murals was quite vibrant.

Moche pottery is some of the most varied in the world. The use of mold technology is evident, which would have enabled the mass production of certain forms. But Moche ceramics vary widely in shape and theme, with most important social activities documented in pottery, including war, agriculture, metalwork, weaving, and erotica.

Traditional north coast Peruvian ceramic art uses a limited palette, relying primarily on red and white colors, fineline painting, fully modeled clay, veristic figures, and stirrup spouts. Moche ceramics created between 150–800 AD epitomize this style. Moche pots have been found not just at major north coast archaeological sites, such as Huaca de la luna, Huaca del sol, and Sipan, but also at small villages and unrecorded burial sites as well.

Huaca del Sol (Temple of the Sun), Mochica cultural capital, 4 km (2 mi) south of the modern city of Trujillo

At least 500 Moche ceramics have sexual themes. The most frequently depicted act is anal sex, with scenes of vaginal penetration being very rare. Most pairs are heterosexual, with carefully carved genitalia to show that the anus, rather than the vagina, is being penetrated. Often, an infant is depicted breastfeeding while the couple has sex. Fellatio is sometimes represented, but cunnilingus is absent. Some depict male skeletons masturbating, or being masturbated by living women.[9]

External video
Pair of Earflares, Winged Messengers (Moche Culture, Peru), Smarthistory[10]
Moche Portrait Head Bottle, Smarthistory[11]

Because irrigation was the source of wealth and foundation of the empire, the Moche culture emphasized the importance of circulation and flow. Expanding upon this, Moche artwork frequently depicted the passage of fluids, particularly life fluids through vulnerable human orifices. There are countless images of defeated warriors losing life fluids through their nose, or helpless victims getting their eyes torn out by birds or captors. Images of captive sex-slaves with gaping orifices and leaking fluids portray extreme exposure, humiliation, and a loss of power.

The coloration of Moche pottery is often simple, with yellowish cream and rich red used almost exclusively on elite pieces. White and black are rarely used. The Moche are known for their portraiture pottery. The pottery portraits created by the Moche appear to represent actual individuals. Many of the portraits are of individuals with physical disfigurements or genetic defects.

The realistic detail in Moche ceramics may have helped them serve as didactic models. Older generations could pass down general knowledge about reciprocity and embodiment to younger generations through such portrayals. The sex pots could teach about procreation, sexual pleasure, cultural and social norms, a sort of immortality, the transfer of life and souls, transformation, and the relationship between the two cyclical views of nature and life.[12]

Extreme weather and fragility of garments mean that relatively few examples of Moche textiles exist.[13] However, limited quantities have been found in tombs, especially of higher-status members of society.[14] Many of the remaining garments are incomplete articles, partially broken down.[13] Nevertheless, scholars have been able to gain cultural insights from the remaining Moche textiles. The Moche wove textiles, mostly using cotton and wool from vicuña and alpaca.[15] The relative presence of these fabrics, as well as which patterns were used, varies chronologically throughout Moche culture. Too few relics exist from early Moche culture to draw conclusive findings. Textiles from around 450 AD uniquely include a male head cloth—which is not readily found elsewhere. Twill and gauze weaving is also common among samples from this period, though by the 500-800 AD range, these patterns become much less abundant.[15] It is thought that elite members of Moche society had specialized artisans who manufactured their textiles, whereas lower-ranking typical members of society would manufacture their own clothing.[13] Whorls and needles have proven quite common in excavation of Moche dwellings—pointing to a household level of production.[16] However, more monochrome, homogenized relics suggest mass-production may have become more common by 500-800 AD.[15] Variation in garments likely correlates with different social classes.[13][14][16] Sophisticated weaving techniques and bright dyes are more common on elites' clothing, whereas commoners may have had garments that were less sophisticated and lacked dye—and they likely had fewer of them.[16] Complex tapestries developed by artisans are another good associated with high social hierarchy.[13] Several specific items also correlate to gender in Moche culture, such as a head cloth for men[15] and a long tunic for women. Foreigners to the Moche Culture were commonly portrayed wearing Moche clothing that contained details pertaining to both genders or items that were not specific to either.[17] Descendants of Moche people today continue to have strong weaving traditions.[13]

The Moche discovered both electrochemical replacement plating and depletion gilding, which they used to cover copper crafts found at Loma Negra in thin layers of gold or silver. Modern attempts were able to recreate a similar chemical plating process using boiling water and salts found naturally in the area.[18] It is the Moche ceramic tradition that had previously been given the most attention in Archaeology, though this is beginning to change as archaeologists continue to discover ties between iconography on ceramic and other parts of Moche art. Just as important to Moche craftsmanship and culture is metallurgy. The skill required to create these objects is perhaps some of the finest the world has ever known.

The first Moche metalworks entered into the archaeological record were unearthed by Max Uhle at Huaca del Sol and Huaca de Luna during 1899 and 1900, but were largely ignored while Uhle focused on other aspects of the sites.[19] Moche metal work gained attention after Peruvian researcher Rafael Larco Hoyle published Los Mochicas in 1945. Here, he mostly focused on describing the large flared headdresses and brilliantly decorated nose ornaments often found in connection with the Moche elite.[19] Despite having no formal training in archaeology, Larco Hoyle was the first to truly attempt a systematic reconstruction of the Moche by drawing on information from excavations, art, iconography, Spanish documents, and modern traditions.[20] The discovery of bronze and gold artifacts buried in the Warrior Priest tomb at the Huaca de la Cruz site one year later also encouraged further study. The same would happen when burial grounds at the site now known as Loma Negra in the Piura Valley were unearthed by looters finding a wealth of gold, silver, and copper objects along with ceramic vessels.[19] An important discovery in the context of Moche metallurgy was the discovery of the Tombs of Sipán in 1986. These burials included a wealth of metal objects unparalleled with any previous discovery. Most of these objects remained in their original context, allowing researchers to prove beyond reasonable doubt that metal objects were closely intertwined with the power of the Moche elite. The rulers of the Moche were incredibly adept at portraying and perpetuating their power through art, which is well-exemplified by the Moche metallurgy.

Moche techniques in metalworking have proved to be an intriguing area of research. Their techniques were likely some of the most advanced in the world during the time of the Moche; restoration has proven difficult to many present-day metalworkers. Craftspeople perfected a wide variety of metalworking techniques. When they invaded in the sixteenth century, Spanish conquistadors took note of the highly skilled metalwork the Inca were able to produce. Unlike European metalworkers, the Inca blew through long tubes to heat coals, rather than using bellows to create a forced draft of air. It is probable that the Moche used a similar method. In fact, archaeologists are aware of several bowls from the Moche culture that depict this process.[20] Many of the Moche metalworking techniques were invented or at least perfected by the Moche themselves, but they owe the invention of some of their most-used techniques at least in part to the influences of the Chavín culture that preceded them. Like the artists of Chavín, they mostly used alloys that contained some combination of gold, silver, or copper that they had developed.[21] While Moche art as a whole is very much independent of the Chavín style, many recurring motifs found across Moche art, including the metalwork, also seem to have their roots in Chavín culture. Moche art continues the tradition of anthropomorphic figures as well as characters with prominent fangs, although the fangs are usually less pronounced than Chavín art and not present quite as often. That is not to say that the Moche didn’t leave their own mark on the Anden society. Many of the techniques developed by the Moche, especially their electroplating and gilding techniques used to make copper alloys appear to be almost internally gold or silver, would continue to be used up until the Inca conquest hundreds of years after the Moche’s collapse.

Several examples of the molds used to shape the low relief sculptures have been discovered, most are made of a solid metal alloy but wood molds were also used.[22] Researchers Christopher B. Donnan and David A. Scott proved how delicate this process of shaping is when they used a cast of one of the copper alloy molds to recreate the process. They found one of the most important parts of the process is the thickness of the sheet metal. Too thick and it will fail to capture the details of the mold and prove too difficult to shape, but too thin and the metal would winkle and tear.[22] They found 0.4mm to be the ideal thickness although the repeated hammering thinned the sheet down to 0.25mm, in addition to hammering repeated annealing was also required.[22] Analysis of the items found at the tombs of Sipan has found that the Moche were able to maintain an almost completely uniform thickness between 1 and about 0.1 millimeters depending on the object.[21]

When this was completed several other techniques could be used to finish the piece. Oftentimes other pieces were attached, sometimes with the intention of being moving parts of the work. More often than not this was done by crimping the metal or the use of interlocking tabs and slits in the two parts, but soldering and edged-wielding were also used.[20] Finishing touches could also be added with embossing, punching and chasing along with embedding other precious materials. Stones such as lapis lazuli, turquoise, spondylus shells, and others have all been found embedded in Moche metal works. It's worth noting that several of the materials are not found on the Moche coast. Lapis Lazuli was available only from modern Chile hundreds of miles to the south and Spondulus shells had to be acquired from modern Ecuador to the north. This makes it clear that the Moche must have had extensive trade networks, and likely contact with other cultures. Also notable in this context is the fact that many of the animals accurately depicted in Moche artwork are found only in the tropical Amazon.[20]

Researchers of the Moche culture agree that the emergence of the Moche culture is related to the intensification of the production of corn, cotton, beans and squash, among other agricultural products, which allowed the development of a regional Moche political economy in the Valley of Moche from the north coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period (400 BC–600 AD).

The northern region of Peru is one of the most arid areas in the world, where there is no rain throughout the year. That factor, far from discouraging the establishment of communities, was the trigger for the construction of an outstanding culture that developed engineering works that interconnected various river valleys, with the aim of irrigating desert territories.

Many of the Mochica agricultural systems are still in operation, such as the Ascope aqueduct, the La Cumbre Canal, in Chicama, or the San Jose dam, which continue to provide water, coming from the Andean region and groundwater, guaranteeing several harvests per year.

Access to new farmland, gained from the desert, was the starting point of a civilization that, based on abundant harvests, became socially stratified. All this allowed certain members of the community to no longer dedicate themselves exclusively to food production, and a process of specialization began that led to the development of the Mochica civilization.[23]