Vessel Representing the Sacrifice Ceremony, 500–700, Moche culture; ceramic; Peru, Facalá.
Museo Larco, Lima, Peru, ML010847
Transcript
[rhythmic drums evoking period and mood]
Male Narrator: The Moche thrived on Peru’s north coast between the third and ninth centuries AD. As you see here, their ceramics are embellished with vivid imagery and are among the finest from the Ancient Americas. Joanne Pillsbury:
[music ends]
Joanne Pillsbury: These ceramic vessels were the great canvases of the ancient Andes, one of the primary places where we see narrative imagery conveying some of the greatest myths of their time, perhaps even some of the greatest historical events of their time.
[dark, dramatic music with mysterious undertones]
Male Narrator: The surface imagery depicts what is known as the Sacrifice Ceremony, the culmination of a larger story called the “Warrior Narrative.” The horizontal band around the center of the vessel’s body is a serpent-like creature that divides the principle scenes of the story.
On the bottom, a feline is being carried aloft toward two prisoners.
[music ends]
Joanne Pillsbury: They’ve been stripped of their costume. The ultimate humiliation in the Ancient Andes was to remove a warrior of his clothing, and also his armor and his weapons. Terrible things are being done to these victims. It looks as if their throats have been opened and blood is being removed from them.
Male Narrator: In the ancient Americas, as in many ancient cultures, blood sacrifice was part of a broader system of beliefs about fertility and regeneration of the world.
[dramatic, rhythmic drums with rattles evoking period and mood]
In the scene above, two figures confront one another: on the left, the Warrior Priest. On the right: a human-bird figure.
Joanne Pillsbury: We see a beautiful crescent headdress on the Warrior Priest. [music ends] We also see an individual who stands behind the birdlike figure. And that figure is wearing a plumed headdress that we now think to be associated with women.
[rhythmic drums evoking period and mood]
Male Narrator: We know from recent excavations that this finery closely resembles regalia worn by Moche rulers. This suggests that the ritual depicted here might actually have taken place. You can see examples of such regalia elsewhere in this gallery.
[music ends]