Moche Iconography & Art

The wide range of objects represented in Moche art led to the conclusion that a broad picture of the culture could be drawn from this source. But subsequent investigations of the iconography of the thousands of examples of the art have demonstrated that the large majority of sculpted and painted ceramic works have religious and ritual significance. First archaeologists developed a database of the objects represented -- ranging from relatively simple ceramic models of animals to complex scenes of ritual and battles painted on pots of several types. By identifying the complete range of animals, objects, discernible activities, and individuals (including the consistent repetition of various combinations of costume and behavior) represented in Moche art it was possible to see the limited range of subjects, characters, animals, and objects that were, for the most part, consistently recombined in ways that indicated the iconographic significance of their interrelationships. Scholars also had recourse to ethnographic analogy between Moche art and contemporary customs in Peru as well as to the post-Columbian historical record which also provided suggestive but inconclusive examples of analogous customs and beliefs. The development of thematic material was the principal basis for a renewed attack on the mysteries of Moche iconography. Donnan identified a fairly small number of themes that, along with their variant and partial versions, constitute the core of Moche icon

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erpretation of Moche iconography had "met with only limited degrees of success" and Donnan sought a means of organizing information to serve as a firm foundation for fresh analyses (Moche 5). Significant differences in perception emerge once iconographic studies of a large sample of Moche pottery have been conducted. In setting out to develop a deeper understanding of Moche iconography Donnan and others compiled an extensive archive of images. Photographs of specimens from collections around the world, as well as proportional fineline drawings of the scenes represented on the curved surfaces of pottery, were gathered. It was essential to accumulate as large a sample as possible. As Donnan reports, "when the sample included approximately 2,000 specimens, it seemed that there were many unique pieces" and this gave the impression (common among earlier archaeologists) that the art "had almost limitless variation in the scenes and objects represented" (Moche 11). Once the sample reached 5,000 items, however, the number of unique items dropped sharply as numerous representations were either duplicated or reproduced with slight variations from already observed categories of scene or object. With the accumulation of an archive of

Category: Arts - M