Nose ornament fragment

Nose ornaments, usually suspended from the nasal septum, served as indicators of status and identity in communities on Peru’s North Coast in antiquity. Such ornaments often obscured the mouth when worn, leading some scholars to suggest they also played a protective role, guarding a vulnerable opening to the body. Made from precious metals, these crescent-shaped works were the focus of immense creative exploration in the first millennium of the Common Era.

Originally the outer part of a crescent-shaped nose ornament, the larger base of the ornament—likely made of silver sheet—has not survived (see MMA accession number 1979.206.1228 for a more complete example). This band was cut from a hammered gold sheet and ten profile birds facing inward were worked from behind (repoussé). Each bird stands within a trapezoid space bordered by raised edges. The ornament was then silvered; the silver on the elevated design was removed by abrasion. The gold band would have been joined to a silver backing by small tabs (Schorsch, 1998: 125). The birds’ eyes were likely inlaid with shell or stone.

The Moche (also known as the Mochica) flourished on Peru’s North Coast from 200-850 CE, centuries before the rise of the Inca. Over the course of some seven centuries, the Moche built thriving regional centers from the Nepeña River Valley in the south to as far north as the Piura River, near the modern border with Ecuador, developing coastal deserts into rich farmlands and drawing upon the abundant maritime resources of the Pacific Ocean’s Humboldt Current. Although the precise nature of Moche political organization is unknown, these centers shared unifying cultural traits such as religious practices (Donnan, 2010).

This ornament was said to have been found at a site or sites known as Loma Negra, a northern outpost of Moche culture. Loma Negra works in metal share similar iconography with ceramics and metalwork found at Moche sites father to the south, such as Ucupe (Bourget, 2014). The exact relationship between Loma Negra and the Moche “heartland” remains a subject of debate, however (Kaulicke, 2006).

References and Further Reading

Bourget, Steve. Les rois mochica: Divinité et pouvoir dans le Pérou ancien. Paris: Somogy éditions d'art. Geneva: MEG, Musée d'ethnographie de Genève, 2014.

Castillo, Luis Jaime. “Masters of the Universe: Moche Artists and Their Patrons.” In Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, Timothy Potts, and Kim N. Richter, pp. 24-31. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017.

Donnan, Christopher B. “Moche State Religion.” In New Perspectives on Moche Political Organization, edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Luis Jaime Castillo, pp. 47-69. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010.

Kaulicke, Peter. “The Vicús-Mochica Relationship.” In Andean Archaeology III, edited by William H. Isbell and Helene H. Silverman, pp. 85-111. Boston: Springer, 2006.

Quilter, Jeffrey, and Alexis Hartford. "Nose Ornaments: A General Typology and Moche Case Study." Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 77, no. 1 (2022), pp. 283-302.

Schorsch, Deborah. "Silver-and-Gold Moche Artifacts from Loma Negra, Peru." Metropolitan Museum Journal 33 (1998), pp. 109-136.