Beaker with inverse face

This flared beaker, seen here inverted, was created by artists of the Lambayeque (also known as Sicán) culture, which once flourished on the northern Pacific coast of what is now Peru. The beaker—probably a drinking vessel that held liquids like chicha, a fermented corn beer—was likely shaped from a blank or ingot that was first hammered into a thin sheet then shaped over a wooden mold. Such standardization allowed the Lambayeque to develop a highly sophisticated large-scale industry around metalworking, so much so that a single high-status tomb could feature hundreds of metal objects.

This particular beaker depicts an anthropomorphic head, shown in the round, that is only legible when the vessel itself is upside down. The face, which appears ubiquitously throughout Lambayeque art, is defined by comma-shaped eyes, an open mouth showing sharp fang-like incisors, and flattened ears that sit nearly flush against the sides of the face. Such attributes, which read more fantastical and zoomorphic than human, has led archaeologist Izumi Shimada to dub this figure the “Sicán Deity.” This divine being may be associated with Ñaimlap, the mythohistoric founder of the Lambayeque culture, whose body is said to have been buried in secret, his attendants claiming he had sprouted wings and flown away. Such desire for deific transfiguration seems aptly captured in the inverse-faced beaker seen here, which retains the noble bearing of a human lord wearing a conical cap and ear ornaments but featuring the facial characteristics of a supernatural entity. These figural elements, moreover, lend themselves to another possible connection to Ñaimlap: the pointed eyes resemble the spread wings of an avian-like zoomorph whose body, demarcated by the shape of the nose, seems poised for takeoff. Such allusions to flight may be interpreted as further invocations of Ñaimlap’s storied transformation, a leitmotif that appears again and again in the work of Lambayeque artists.

Ji Mary Seo

Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, 2023-2024

References

Carcedo Muro de Mufarech, Paloma. “Los vasos en la orfebrería sicán.” In Cultura Sicán: Esplendor preincaico de la costa norte, edited by Izumi Shimada, 107-146. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2014.

Carcedo Muro de Mufarech, Paloma, and Izumi Shimada. “Behind the Golden Mask: Sicán Gold Artifacts from Batán Grande, Peru.” In The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection, edited by Julie Jones, 60-75. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985.

Wester La Torre, Carlos, Federico Kauffmann Doig, Jeffrey Quilter, Joanne Pillsbury, Luis Alfredo Narváez Vargas, and Susan Elizabeth Ramírez. Ñaimlap: Memoria Lambayeque y materialidad histórica. San Isidro: Ernst & Young (EY Perú), 2021.