|
|
 |
| La
Libertad |
| |
|
 |
| The Moche and Chimú kingdoms |
|
| |
Recent archeological findings show that
the coast of the La Libertad department was home to
ancient civilizations that in many respects were just
an important as the Incas, Mayas or Aztecs. Most of
their legacy is in the form of remarkable temples located
only a few minutes from Trujillo, a city in northern
Peru. This city, the department’s capital, is
45 minutes away from Lima by plane (560 km) and lies
209 km from Chiclayo, following the northern Pan-American
highway. Average summer temperature is 24ºC and
the weather is mild and sunny the rest of the year. |
|
|
| |
|
 |
| The Chan-Chan Citadel |
|
| |
Spreading over more than 20 square kilometers,
the world’s largest mud brick citadel was declared
part of Mankind’s Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.
From a pure functional viewpoint, it resembles more
the Egyptian necropolis at Gizeh than the walled cities
of Babylon.
Located almost at the city limits of Trujillo, Chan-Chan
(or The Great Sun in the Mochica language) was the capital
of the vast Chimú empire. Built between the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, it comprises palaces, residential
quarters, cemeteries, gardens and platforms for religious
performances surrounded by walls up to 13 meters high.
Exquisite high reliefs sculpted with refined techniques
depict geometric and animal patterns that evidence the
unique artistry and complexity reached in the use of
clay in Chan-Chan in association with the liturgy and
customs of the dominant castes.
Located in the lower Moche valley, the Chan-Chan compound
gradually expanded from an initial core in the Cayhuac
citadel and the El Higo pyramid to eventually embrace
a total of what seem to be 10 adjoining monumental citadels.
Appearances, however, are deceiving. The high perimeter
walls and the labyrinth of rooms around the main squares
were in all likelihood built as palaces for the Chimor
kings. After the death of each sovereign, the corpse
was buried together with his harem and some members
of his retinue inside the platform monument built behind
his residence. The surviving members of the dead king’s
household and other special attendants were charged
with collecting tribute in kind and labor to keep the
palace in good state of repair, thus ensuring the continuity
of the posthumous cult to the dead monarch.
A total population of 26 400 residents has been estimated
of which some 10 500 were handicrafts makers of both
sexes. A vast network of irrigated farms and sunken
field, as well as llama packs, ensured the uninterrupted
supply of foodstuffs and raw materials. In Chan-Chan,
like in the Egyptian necropolis, ample quarter for artisans
and bureaucrats were located near the pyramids and funerary
palaces to ensure the continuity of worship to the god-monarchs
during hundreds and even thousands of years after their
death.
|
|
|
|
 |
| Pakatnamú |
|
| |
Sitting on a high plateau straddling the
valley and the sea, Pakatnamú ranks among the most
beautiful and largest of all Mochica, Lambayeque or Chimú
sites.
Protected by two large walls and deep precipices, Pakatnamú
spreads over 1,5 square kilometers. It reached its present
configuration during the Lambayeque period, and although
the purpose served by its architectural layout is not
perfectly clear to modern eyes, plentiful evidence of
complex rites, including human sacrifices, suggests researchers
this was a large ceremonial center, in some way similar
to the Pachacamac oracle in Peru’s central Coast.
|
| «
Archeology |
|
|
 |
| Temple or huaca de los Reyes |
|
| |
Upstream of the Moche river rises several
temples that pre-dates Chan-Chan by more than 2 000 years.
Huaca de los Reyes, a 200 Ha compound under the eight
earth mound at the Caballo Muerto site, was built during
the second millennium BC and required the labor equivalent
of 350 000 man-days.
Probably one of the political and religious centers of
the Cupisnique civilization, Huaca de los Reyes is well-known
for its sculpted, carved pottery often mistaken for Chavín
ceramic. Judging from its Carbon-14 dating, the Cupisnique
style may have spread beyond the valley only after Huaca
de los Reyes was abandoned.
In its final form, this group of three large platforms
(each 160 by 120 meters at the basis and six meters high)
located around a rectangular square is precisely aligned
along the cardinal points.
On its summit six temples of stone and mud mortar were
built. A fine stucco plaster covers the walls, square-shaped
1,50 meters wide columns and the rooftops of the arches
opening to U-shaped atrium.
On the façade decorated with sculptured clay friezes,
some well-preserved images clearly represent the heads
of 12 mythical ancestors with mouths full of sharp jaguar
fangs. Each of the complex head sculptures stands 2 meters
tall is 1,80 meters deep. |
| «
Archeology |
|
| |
|
 |
| Huacas of the Sun and Moon |
|
| |
The kingdom of Chimor can be traced back
to the Moche –for the name of the valley- or Mochica,
as these people are called in the pre-Hispanic language
of the neighboring Lambayeque department. The Chimor spread
between the second and eighth centuries AD along 700 km
of between the valleys of Piura and Huarmey.
On the left bank of the Moche river, 8 km from the city
of Trujillo, was located the main power center of the
Mochica civilization, at the sol and Luna Huacas, as they
are known today. The Sun Huaca- or temple- is the largest
of all pre-Hispanic pyramids and compares by volume to
the Egyptian pyramids at Saqqara. Its construction required
some 143 million mud bricks. Unfortunately, a sizable
part of this edification was destroyed by looters who
in 1 602 cut the pyramid in two by making the river’s
waters flow through its middle.
An impressive cross section left by the river waters shows
the successive development stages of the pyramid, both
outwards from the core and upwards from the basis. As
other similar construction from pre-ceramic times, the
Moche temples were subject to periodical renovations after
their users had carefully covered with dirt the areas
that were no longer in use.
To build the high platforms, they erected large rectangular
molded-adobe columns reclining against each other. People
from several groups must have contributed their labor
as tax paid to the state to build the temple.
The pyramidal Cerro Blanco (White Mountain) is 500 meters
away. At its foot stands the Huaca de la Luna or Moon
Temple (95 x 85 x 25 meters) in sharp visual and ceremonial
contrast to the Temple of the Sun. It comprises three
independent ceremonial compounds, each possessing a system
of restricted access ways, wallet courtyards and roofed
halls. On the walls, polychrome paintings and high reliefs
seem to have been made only yesterday. At present, most
areas are protected with roofs and provided with walkways
for visitors.
The temple’s external walls are decorated with high
relief motifs of fanged deities, with hair made of monster
snakes ending in heads of marine birds.
A Similar divinity guard the main entrance to the central
complex, flanked on each side by a sliding viper crowned
with a condor head.
Both characters appear again in the scenes painted on
Moche ceremonial pottery to describe myths and ritual
practices. One of the personages is represented as a fisherman
wielding his power over the seas. The other one appears
as living in the heart of the mountains. Usually depicted
as an owl or a spider in the company of baths, this divinity
stands for the night and the netherworld. The knife and
the head, he holds in his hand, shows his third for human
sacrifices. Some scenes show the sacrifice of victims
pushed downhill to kill them in his honor.
Some private inner temple chambers to which access was
restrictive were also decorated with mural paintings,
the most renowned among which depicts some scenes from
the myth about the “rebellion of things” where
the warriors’ clothes and weapons rebelled against
their masters, defeated them in combat and offered the
prisoners’ blood to a supernatural couple: a male
god with an owl face and a woman with braided snakes as
hair. Often, the woman is seen drinking from the first
quarter Moon while sailing the sea, thus leading weapons,
and processions of prisoners decorated the walls along
the ramp leading into the main building.
Between the two Huaca temples there is a flat area long
believed to have been a square or a vacant lot. Excavations
have revealed that the area is in fact full of constructions.
A whole city now hidden under the sand, it depended on
the two temples for its livelihood. A broad avenue running
parallel to the Moon temple channeled human traffic and
divided the cult and the residential areas. Small squares
with a single access point were surrounded by houses of
several rooms. Next to them, the workshop produced religious
paraphernalia, ceramics and metal objects. Its dimension
and orderly layout give the ensemble a clear urban aspect.
|
| «
Archeology |
|
| |
|
|
| The Temple at Pañamarca |
|
| |
For decades, the images of fierce warriors
led to believe that the Moche culture was built on a purely
military foundation.
Results of recent research about Moche iconography have
questioned this belief. Apparently, their religious cult
and complex ceremonies revolved around the relatively
peaceful relations among various ethnic groups who lived
along the northern Coast. The complex power ideology,
so characteristically represented in the rich Moche iconography,
may even reflect the cohesiveness between one or several
multiethnic Moche states.
As a matter of fact, the most important building on the
Moche states’ southern frontier was not a fortress
but the Pañamarca temple located in the Nepeña
valley. There, a set of elevated boulders of whimsical
shapes merges beautiful with the sugar cane fields. These
rocks were considered sacred by the users of Moche pottery
(second to seventh centuries AD) and so they decided to
build two pyramids – one small and the added walled
squares and more elevates rooms. The site is well known
for its large-scale mural paintings illustrating myths
and religious ceremonies. |
| «
Archeology |
|
| |
|
 |
| The Huacas at Cao (El Brujo) |
|
| |
Probably, the political and religious Mochica
capital in the Chicama valley richer in water and farming
land than the Moche area, was located in Cao where two
pyramidal buildings sit on the shore facing each other.
One, El Brujo -or The Sorcerer- stands out for the rich
and well-preserved polychrome relief scenes that cover
the façade.
On the wall surrounding the large square near the main
building, images of dancing priests – wearing either
a headpiece and crown that remind us of the feminine deity,
or a frayed tee-shirt like male partner, the owl-spider
divinity- are depicted together with the procession of
naked prisoners tied with ropes around neck. A row of
supernatural spiders decorates the top frieze of the façade.
On the north-west corner of the façade, a small
roofed room stands on a low platform. Its outside walls,
the vestibule’s walls and the ceiling were decorated
with mythological scenes –mostly well-preserved-
of ritual combats between groups of warriors.
A mythical deity attends these mythical representations
against a nocturnal seascape. On a few ceremonial jugs,
delicately drawn line-paintings narrate a sequence of
rituals honoring the deity. Prisoners defeated in combat
are taken on reed boats to the islands where they will
be sacrificed by bleeding their jugular vein, an offering
that the gods of the sea rewarded with plentiful fishing
and sea lions for hunting. Possible these ceremonies took
place totally or partially at the temple.
From the summit of the pyramid, the visitor will notice
the difference between this and Egyptian or Maya pyramids.
As in the Moon Huaca, the corridors and halls -some of
which are covered by roofs resting on columns- follow
each other at the top of the edification. Several are
decorated with reliefs and painting of multiple colors.
In some areas, the scary god of the world below wields
his ceremonial knife and severed head. In other areas,
three-story high walls preserve their intact decoration
where we frequently see the face with snake hair and pointed
fags.
Like in the Moon Temple, whenever the Cao temple had to
be rebuilt, additional funerary chambers were built. Probably,
the reconstruction itself was related to the death of
an important bureaucrat or priest.
Unfortunately, for some reason the chambers were opened
and their occupants moved elsewhere. The ceramic vessels
found there, some of which are of exceptionally high quality,
can be seen at the Wiese Foundation Museum in Trujillo.
Another exceptional piece found there is a carved wood
column with a capital depicting a priest and two rampant
felines facing him.
Despite the arguments for more sophisticated navigational
arts, the pre-Hispanic iconography of the northern Peruvian
Coast shows only one-man boats used in river travel, usually
pulled by swimmers, as well as the reed rafts used for
fishing near the shore.
A local reed variety known as totora (Schoenoplectus californicus
) is still used to build the peculiar one-man boats. After
letting the reed dry for a month, it is woven into a sort
of kayak. The rider kneels on the raft and rows out to
the sea. Fishermen in the Pimentel district in Chiclayo
are among the modern users of the ancient caballito de
totora, or “totora reed horses” as they are
called locally.
The Mochica also seem to have to used a sort of totora
catamaran provided with a covered deck but with no sail.
This vessel was large enough to carry prisoners and offerings
to the site of the ceremonial sacrifice, usually a rocky
island away from the shore. |
| «
Archeology |
|
| |
|
 |
| The Galindo Pyramids |
|
| |
Weather changes recorded in the expansion
rings of high Andean glaciers show that the seventh and
sixth centuries BC were hard times for the residents of
the northern Coast.
The Moche culture knew very well to fend off the negative
effects of droughts and catastrophic rains. Still, the
political consequences of those phenomena must have been
severe for the Moche rulers. Indeed, several clues point
to sudden mass movements of population on the northern
limits of the Moche area of cultural influence, both in
the Highlands and on the Coast, announcing the emergence
of a new cultural phenomenon: the Wari civilization. Quickly
emerging new capitals, located in strategic places and
equally distant from critical irrigation and defense locations
seem to fit into this context. In the Moche valley, for
instance, rulers made a decision to build a large settlement
around imposing pyramids. Galindo, as the site is called,
is surrounded by walls probably for defense purposes.
Between the sixth an eighth centuries of our era, Galindo
undoubtedly achieved a greater political weight than the
Sun and Moon temples. The Moche finally yielded to external
pressure towards the end of the eighth century AD. |
| «
Archeology |
|
| |
|
 |
| The Administrative Center at Viracochapampa
|
|
| |
To better understand the cultural identity
of the Highlands invaders who contributed to the end the
Mochica civilization, we must travel deep into the mountain
region of La Libertad, to a compound located some 2,5
km from Huamachuco.
Viracochapampa is an architectural compound built to serve
administrative functions in the Wari empire. Its size
and design make it similar to Pikillaqta in Cusco and
Azángaro in Ayacucho. Walls about 2 meters high
divide the large (581 x 574 meters at the base) trapezoidal
area into squares, open areas and courtyards of carefully
planned architecture.
Typically, the courtyards are surrounded on three sides
by covered archways while the fourth archway leads to
a rectangular room with niches on the walls. There has
been with niches on the walls. There have been many debates
about the function of this layout. The similarity with
Greek, Roman and Renaissance urban layout led to believe
these were also cities of the same kind but recent excavations
show that the sites had a very short permanent population,
despite their large surface area. Instead, the planned
modules probably functioned as warehouses and lodging
areas for the visitors who arrived to pay their tribute
either in kind or in labor (the so-called mita)
An imposing aqueduct, 800 meters long, 16 meters wide
and from 6 to 10 meters high, is probably related to this
remarkable administrative center. The waterway runs through
the entire La Cuchilla flatlands, the granaries and circular
warehouses at Amaro Mountain and the monumental mausoleum
at Marca Huamchuco. Evidence found in the region points
to an independent cultural development antedating the
Wari occupation which does not seem to have been very
long (600 to 800 BC), because Viracochapampa was never
finished.
Although the ceramic and architectural findings leave
no doubt about its relationship to Ayacucho, there is
debated about the exact nature of this link. However,
the prevalent opinion is that Viracochapampa was the provincial
capital of an expansionist state with Wari, in Ayacucho,
as its administrative center.
A religious system probably originating in Tiawanaku,
on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Puno, may have been
at the origin of the political doctrine upheld by the
latter -often appearing in the kero vases and other fine
ceremonial vessels- are characters with radiant headpieces
followed by a retinue of bird-like attendants of Tiawanaku
inspiration. |
| «
Archeology |
|
| |
|
 |
| Ceramic Portraits: Faces of the
Mochica |
|
| |
Amazing realism, expressiveness and varied
and detailed facial features characterize the Mochica
ceramic portrait vessels that are one of the most interesting
and enigmatic aspects of Peruvian pre-Hispanic art.
Exact replicas of human faces appeared only late and exceptionally
in art. The dramatic realism of Roman republican portraits
was probably born from the custom by the deceased person’s
relatives of wearing masks representing other dead relatives.
Made using a wax mold taken from the dead person’s
body, the masks were subsequently kept in the family altar,
thus may have been born the fashion of sculpting a truthful
representation of human faces.
A different origin may explain the intricate balance between
ideological representation and the unrepeatable naturalness
of some Egyptian dignitary’s effigies originally
kept in chambers destined to funerary cult.
They were principally meant to protect the shape of the
body from decay and propitiate the return of the soul.
Due to their variety and expressiveness, Mochica representations
stand at a par with the Roman figures and in number they
equal Egyptian ones. We may wonder though about the identity
of the characters immortalized by the ceramists. The list
is long but definitely limited to the power elite.
Among the characters we can perfectly distinguish sick
people suffering multiple skin lesion, women with the
unmistakable braided hair, and corps almost down to their
skeletons. The pot-makers also made reproductions of supernatural
animals and other beings, including their divinities.
This peculiarity gives us a clue to try and unveil the
likely reasons driving Mochica handicraft makers as well
as explain the unexpected appearance of realism as away
to depict the unique features of individual human faces.
Most of these presumed portraits represent males who performed
ritual functions as attendants and priests. They delivered
the victims’ blood to supernatural beings, carried
rattles and banners, danced and took part in orgiastic
heterosexual rites.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, effigies of dignitaries
are infrequent and those that have been found correspond
to supreme priests who preside over track competitions
and other rituals from their comfortable seats at the
top of the pyramids.
Birds, felines or tassels decorate their fine turbans.
Rulers are distinguished from priests by their war clothes
and the helmet-shaped headpiece.
Numerous portraits show characters with loose long or
short hairstyles who may be sacrifice victims and executioners
of bloody rituals, like in the bottles with the stirrup
handle used as deposits for ceremonial liquids and blood
in particular.
Then why to make portraits of individual sacrifice attendants
and their victims? Apparently this ceramics were not actual
individual portraits in the western sense of the word
–although their makers were undoubtedly inspired
by real faces- but were rather type faces.
The facial features, paintings, tattoos and details of
the headpiece, earrings and nosering may have served to
rank the person portrayed in the ceramic within a complex
ethnic and political structure.
Mochica material culture and, in particular their icons,
make us think of group of one or several multiethnic states
sharing a common religious ideology. Ritual combats facing
warriors from various ethnic groups or places, exhausting
race competitions and human sacrifices served both as
propitiation rites for the well-being of the community
and for young people’s initiation.
Almost surely, the expressive faces on Mochica bottles
were not meant to remember gone relatives or to honor
their rules.
Rather, they were placed in tombs as a sign of the dead
person’s fully –entitled membership in Mochica
society and who therefore was expected to perform periodically
the roles ascribed to him by reason of kinship and political
function. |
| «
Archeology |
| |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
