Pair of Ear Ornaments

Moche artists worked tiny pieces of highly valued materials such as shell, turquoise, and other blue-green stones into mosaics on the large circular frontals of ear ornaments. One pair here portrays winged runners, likely anthropomorphized owls, each holding a small bag. Darker inlays on the kneecaps, lower legs, and feet represent the figures’ body paint. Ritual running by a human or an anthropomorphized animal is one of the most frequently depicted activities in later Moche ceramics, but, as with the lizard motif on the other ornaments, its full meaning is unknown.



Unas incrustaciones oscuras en las rótulas, en las partes bajas de las piernas y en los pies hacen referencia a la pintura corporal de estos corredores. Las carreras rituales, ya sean corridas por humanos o por animales antropomórficos, son una de las actividades representadas con mayor frecuencia en las cerámicas de la época moche tardía, aunque tal como ocurre con el motivo de la lagartija, su significado completo sigue siendo desconocido.