Moche culture or culture is an archaeological culture of ancient Peru that developed between 100 and el700 d. C. in the valley of Moche (present province of Trujillo, department of La Libertad) river. This culture spread to the valleys of the northern coast of Peru today.
The Moche companies did great works of hydraulic engineering: irrigation canals and dams, which allowed them to expand their scale agricultural frontier.
Were great architects; its raw material was adobe. Built complex religious and administrative of monumental character, made up of palaces and temples or huacas (in the form of truncated pyramid), which the daubed large murals in high and low relief, painted with colors from nature, where they expressed their gods, myths, legends and all its cultural worldview. The most notable of these buildings are called Huaca del Sol, in the valley of Moche.
Were the best metallurgists of his time; They gilded copper much earlier than in Europe; and they learned a variety of techniques (rolling, hammering, wiring, welding, etc.), making tools, weapons, outfits, emblems, ornaments and all their varied and rich ritual paraphernalia.
They are considered the best potters of ancient Peru, thanks to the fine work done and made in their ceramics. They represented both sculptural and pictorial way to divinities, men, animals and scenes referred to ceremonial significant themes and myths that reflected their world, highlighting the amazing expressiveness, perfection and realism with which endowed. This art protrude painted ceramics and erotic figurines.
They were great navigators: built reed horses, which were smaller for fishing and larger for your trip to the equatorial coast, from where they brought the Spondyllus shell, sacred to the Moche, and in general, for other cultures Old coastal Peru.
Politically, the Moche society -of strong segmentation in social classes were organized into kingdoms or lordships Confederates. It was possible to learn more about this culture through the discovery of intact some of their rulers or lords, like the Lord of Sipan and the Lady of Cao tombs.
Northerners and Southerners MOCHICAS
Initially it was thought Moche and cultural unity, but the natural division of the North Coast in the wilderness of Paiján also divided the cultural manifestations of the Moche: Mochica Mochica North and South.
The Moche Northerners had higher abundance of metals in their graves (the Lord of Sipan is an example), while the South Moche produced most of the painted ceramics which are almost nonexistent among northerners.
The northern pottery is orange or cream color with designs in red or purple, while the southerners use used white or cream background and motives in red or ocre.En the northern constructions built pyramids with ramps, while in the southern, there are ramps.
Initially it was thought Moche and cultural unity, but the natural division of the North Coast manufactured by the most painted ceramics which are almost nonexistent among northerners.
Towards the end of the Moche period, South Moche came to overshadow the power of Moche North, conquering and Jequetepeque teritorios to Piura. But this hegemony was brief, for to the 550 AD, this society was transformed product of severe droughts. One of them, 32, probably due to a manifestation of El Niño, resulted in the displacement of the lower parts of the valleys and shifting into the valley.
This caused a new upsurge in Northern Moche class and a weakening of the Southern Moche. North Moche, at the end of his term ended coexisting with the Viru culture.
The main centers were in North Moche River valley Jequetepeque (where is San José de Moro and Huaca Dos Cabezas) and Lambayeque river valley (where Sipan and Pampa Grande is located).
The main centers of South Moche was the Moche River valley (where the Huaca of the Sun is and the Moon) and Chicama river valley (where the El Brujo is).
APPLIED STUDIES
Historically it was known as Protochimú by Max Uhle; Willy Gordon called Classical; Muchik, Julio C. Tello, and Chimu Early (Early Chimu) by Kroeber in 1925. At present, Mochica or Moche is the name most commonly used in scientific language. But it was Max Uhle (1899) who unveiled for the first time the existence of this culture after conducting research in the valley of Moche. Uhle excavated about 50 graves from the Huaca del Sol, which allowed him to identify four distinct cultures that lived on in the valley: Protochimú (Mochica) Tiahuanacoide, Chimu and Inca.
Cultural materials, especially ceramics, found by Uhle were taken to the University of Berkeley and analyzed by Alfred Kroeber (1930), confirming that it was a Pretiahuanaco Protochimú and Culture, said earlier by Uhle. Based on pottery, Don Rafael Larco Hoyle (1948) classified it into five stylistic phases, taking certain criteria for this shape and dimensions of the peaks, stirrup handles and body as well as decorations. The first two with a strong heritage of Cupisnique, Salinar and Viru styles; the third and fourth stage called classic and the fifth phase regarded as the period of decline with strong foreign influences.
PHASES OF CULTURE MOCHICA
Political organization - social
Moche was a State Militarista- nation Teocratico, not existed a central government but was a group of independent chiefdoms where ruled a curaca, each of them controlling one or more coastal valleys. Warriors had to enjoy a special status, professional armies for control, political domination and territorial security is formed, as evidenced military complex strategically located in the valleys and extensive walls that surrounded the small kingdoms.
The main center and capital of the Mochica was the Moche valley. The Moche society was stratified. The Mochica been expanding its territories by wars of conquest, new territories were linked by a network of roads and paths. The paths of the Moche and the system of way stations are believed to have been an early inspiration for the network of Inca roads.
* The Cie-Quich (represented as a jaguar) was the ruler or king of one or many coastal valley.
* The Alaec: They were subordinate to the power of a Moche "Cie quich" sovereign kings.
* The Priest (depicted as a fox) possessed great power in the Moche population and initiated the rituals religosos
* El Pueblo (represented like a lizard): It was composed of farmers, fishermen, merchants and craftsmen.
Textiles and clothes were mainly made of vicuna and alpaca. Although there are very few examples of this, the Moche people had knowledge of their ancestors.
EconomíaAgricultura. Hydraulic engineering
The Moche had a special concern for agricultural development. In this sense, they cultivated corn, sweet potato, cassava, potato, pumpkin, fruits such as tuna, lucuma, cherimoya, lie, peanuts and papaya. As they had to carry water to grow dryland, built canals (Wachaques) they are shown as remarkable works of hydraulic engineering, as Ascope and Summit.
Also built dams such as San José, whose stored waters served to irrigate the land in times of drought and industrially escasez.Cultivaron the cotton in natural colors such as white, brown, red and morado.Tambien grown reeds.
It was recorded a drought of several years, believed to be related to an eruption of the volcano, which generated a winter of two years worldwide. It is more likely, however, that was due to El Niño, which would have caused a terrible crisis in agricultural production, which led to the abandonment of many farmland and reducing the Moche territory.
Among the animals that consumed are called, the guinea pig, duck, deer, turkey and white-winged lizards (lizards).
Fishing. Birthplace of ceviche
reed horses in the Peruvian beach in Huanchaco.
The Moche had extensive experience as fishermen and that proves the old boats they used and so far are still made called reed horses. They fished dogfish, rays, soles, etc. and they collected seafood like sea urchins and crabs.
The Moche fishermen had the initial custom of eating raw fish with lemons natives of the area called chullco (sour), lie, Puru Puru (green sour), Ceuta (subtle lemon) as referred to studies of food etnotecnología Rondán Andres Tinoco, researcher School of Industrial Engineering at the URP (University Ricardo Palma).
Navigation and trade
The sea had on the Moche special appeal. Armed with their horses of reeds, which already had about three thousand years old then became fishers skilled, in the same way that organized expeditions that arrived to the island of Chincha to remove the guano, so efficient for the payment of the farms. With a larger reed horses were expeditions north to Ecuador from where they brought Spondyllus shells, sacred to the Moche which made pectorals and bracelets or crushed and dusted in temples and palaces; and as far south as Chile, where brought.
Also possessed warrior ships were manned by more than three or four people and carrying military groups or the vanquished in war prisoners. They are not different from those made by other coastal cultures from 1000a.c.
ARQUITECTURA
Dibujo of how he had seen La Huaca The BrujoEn terms of architecture, the construction of the great pyramids of the Moche period could only be possible through a common work very well run, using prisoners of war and the mass of the subjects of the chief priests.
The Mochica architecture was influenced by the Viru culture, especially in the use of space in the shape of the stepped "pyramid". Both monumental architecture and domestic, were characterized primarily by being built of bricks rectangular parallelepiped solid constitution, made in wooden molds. In the upper face various brands made under pressure or wide incisions, possibly identifying the different totem groups that participated in the construction of the monument, probably referring to a working system of corporate or the enforcement of religious tribute to their deities warn supreme.
Until the different main monuments, there have been more than a hundred of these symbols. The dimensions of these bricks, which are usually beige, are 43 x 27 x 17 and 33 x 20 x 15 cm. The Moche architects also used the stone as a building, but of less use to the adobe, and primarily to the foundations of walls and terraces. The most typical form of ceremonial and domestic structures is rectangular, except for structures built with circular walls on hilltops, as in the case of Galindo in the Moche valley or Huaca Chólope in the Santa valley . Galindo offers, also, domestic architecture in an approximate area of 5000 m2, and its patron the building of houses on stone platforms.
The monumental architectural complexes that fulfilled religious and administrative functions consist of several stepped terraces that span the width of the building, keeping symmetrical order with inclined ramps patios or plazas.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEMPLES
Mural at Huaca Cao Mochica
Huaca de la Luna: Sign of Moche The general characteristics of the temples or huacas architecture are its rectangular adobes are joined with mud mortar, arranged in modular panels that give the apareriencia large columns supported with each other from its base, thus achieving seismic resistance and the perpetuity; also the bricks are arranged singing, head and rope. The basic architecture of the Moche culture, in conclusion, was monumental, domestic and defense. What it is represented by impressive monumental buildings "pyramid". The home was small, several connecting rooms with rectangular entrances, arched at the top and inclined gable. The defense were erected in large fortifications.
Huaca del Sol
The stepped pyramid called "Huaca del Sol" is one of the most impressive buildings of all pre-Columbian Peru. It is assumed that this building erected on a stepped terrace had an area of over 55 thousand square meters and 40 meters high and about 140 million rectangular bricks were used in its construction, and not subjected to cooking. The shape of the Pyramid of the Moon, built on a rocky outcrop of Cerro Blanco and facing the Huaca del Sol, occupies an area of almost 290 square 210 meters and consists of several ceremonial platforms and patios. Inside they have found no trace of housework, unlike the Huaca del Sol, which would demonstrate the ceremonial nature of its construction. In 1995, the Canadian archaeologist Steve Bourget, unearthed the bodies of 42 young brutally slaughtered, a finding that has been interpreted as a mass culling linked to El Niño.
The platform was the basis consisted of five terraces, access was through an embankment 90 meters long and 6 meters wide, which apparently served as entrance to the building. Then, there is a "pyramid" that crowns the entire southern region consists of five stepped platforms. It is very likely that he was decorated with murals and the Huaca de la Luna.
The Huaca of the Moon, located at the foot of the hill White considered "impressive ceremonial center" consists of a complex of structures which occupies an area of approximately 350 x 300 meters. oriented from south to north. Stepped pyramid has three platforms, the largest has a square shape and measures 100 m. side; the southwestern flank of the complex is connected to a square to the north and east; in turn, it connects the second place with two others, one north and one to the southwest. Both places are associated in the eastern part on a platform.
Both the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna, formed an administrative and religious complex, located on the slopes of Cerro Blanco, the most revered of the Moche.
METALURGIA
Rattle of gold belonging to the Lord of Sipan, where the Horseless God has in hand a knife and in the other a head humana.Los Mochica innovated technology and metallurgical production with intensive use of copper for the manufacture of ornaments, weapons and tools. His most important feat was gilding the metal with a sophisticated technique that obtains the same results as the electrolytic system invented in Europe until the late eighteenth century. The goldsmiths had learned to melt gold gilding on the molds and copper objects. They totally dominated the copper-gold alloy and came to make gold and silver soldiers. There were also copper utensils, while the bronze was not discovered until later. The Moche were skilled metal smelters. They knew their physicochemical properties; They desarrrollaron manufacturing techniques and above all learned about the extraction of mineral and metallurgical processing. They dominated the gold, silver, copper, lead, mercury and processes alloys such as bronze gilded copper, gold and silver gilt, which are the result of the alloy of copper, gold and silver in special proportions, called tumbaga and in combination with reactive elements, with the aim of an electrochemical deposition, using for this corrosive minerals such as sodium chloride, potassium nitrate, potassium alum, aluminum double sulphates and potash, ferric sulfate and sodium chloride, antioxidant, charcoal and clay.
They developed, likewise, technologies smelting, refining, welded heat and cold, stamping, casting molds through, rolling and watermark, etc. They made a variety of objects of actual use, sacral and military; also ornaments for the elite and domestic and necklaces, nose rings, earrings, bracelets, clips, rings, crowns, breastplates, plates, cups, bowls; agricultural, surgical, knives, funerary masks, protective and perfect musical instruments such as rattles, whistles, flutes, drums, instruments etc.
CERAMIC
The best-known Moche pottery cultural legacy of the Mochica pottery is usually deposited as precious offering to the dead. Men, gods, animals, plants and complex scenes were represented by their artists in the form of sculptural images or vases decorated with a brush.
Overall this is bichrome (red on cream). These colors have a wide range of colors, there is a tendency to become darker at the end of Moche development.
The ceramics or "figurines" Moche (closed vessels, erythrocyte or sculptural body, flat base and a tubular neck shaped stirrup), have been a primary element to know not only the spirit of the pre-Inca culture; society, the natural environment in which they developed and the different stages of cultural evolution.
Mochica pottery
The best known cultural legacy of the Mochica pottery is usually deposited as precious offering to the dead. Men, gods, animals, plants and complex scenes were represented by their artists in the form of sculptural images or vases decorated with a brush.
His famous plastic surprised by the expressiveness and perfection of true portraits of clay. The classic standards of perfection and realism are recognized even mythological beings, humanized animals, men with animal attributes or combined parts of several animals.
Pictographs squander their life and movement in complex scenes of ceremonies, battles, hunting rituals and probable mythical stories. In this field they used the pottery mold techniques work which increased production. However, the dishes for daily use, household utensils and water containers were functional, simple and sparsely decorated.
The Mochica shaped the environment of their cultural and religious world in its expressive ceramic perfecting an artistic activity which is the best document and testimony of their culture: men, gods, animals, plants and complex scenes were represented.
The Moche pottery developed in two major areas: painting and sculpture. Next to the famous Mochica plastic, which surprised by the expressiveness of his "portraits" of clay are also reflected pictorial representations on the globular surface of the pottery. Using figures outlined strokes and complex scenes where the beings represented squander life and movement. Thus, the position of the limbs may indicate quiet, walk, run or dance; tilting the torso forward involves speed and position of the head, reverence or dignity. In artistic anatomical discrepancies, these figures combine parts of the front and side.
In its schematic drawings, the perspective is set by reducing the size of distant representations. Other times, it is used to separate horizontal panels that indicate various levels. The size and proportion of the actors says his rank and importance in the scene: the gentlemen were always represented larger than ordinary men.
Recent studies make clear that the Mochica art did not grasp all aspects of daily life and that figure only images and scenes regarding significant events, ceremonial constant themes and probably myths and stories that reflect their world. A representative selection brings us to the fascinating world of graphic images.
Moche pottery, even though their performances are so artistic and natural for our eyes, was made in most of the cases under strict controls power groups. The Moche conceived their sculptural and pictorial pottery as a means of ideological reinforcement, whereby elites representing their worldview and disseminated to the masses as also happened with the Moche murals divine representations or sacrifices in the Temple of the Sun and the Luna and El Brujo. Replays on the reasons and the choice of certain subjects suggest that schools were potters and artisans had rules imposed by religious and social systems. This is reinforced if we see that there are two major styles in the Moche ceramics, that elite ceramics and local pottery. In the first case the style does not vary from valley to valley, which confirms that the production is carried out in special centers under some sort of control. In the second, the styles vary according to the particularities of each valley, for the control of this type of pottery, more utilitarian and lower quality, was more lax.
The Lord of Sipan
Lord of SipánSipán is a small town which is located 35 kilometers southeast of Chiclayo. There is the so-called Huaca Rajada. In March 1987 the Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva succeeded in eradicating the looters (huacas robbers) and proceeded to excavate.
It was the only tomb of a governor found intact in pre-Columbian Peru and dating from the third century. He is currently in elMuseo Royal Tombs of Sipan in Lambayeque. This is a man of 1.67 m, and between 35-40 years old. You will be found next to the remains of eight people (three women, two men, a boy and two guards) and animals (two llamas and a dog). 209 ceramics were also found, many of which contained offerings. The character's body was covered with numerous ornaments, arms and emblems of gold, silver and gilded copper. The contemporary priest of the Lord of Sipan, and a character with arms, clothes, ornaments, emblems, must have had the same position of the Lord of Sipan and was baptized as Old: two months after graves were found Sipán.El Lord of Lord of Sipan is the descendant of three generations.
