Miniature headdress with owl

This tiny but impressive headdress is a scaled-down version of a type of ornament worn by high-ranking individuals in Moche society on Peru’s North Coast in the first millennium of the Common Era. The headdress was created from two pieces of hammered gold sheet cut into the shape of an owl with outstretched wings surmounted by a large crescent. Details such as the wings’ feathers were added in repoussé, a technique where the metal sheet is worked from behind. The owl’s head—not original to this object—was created separately and attached by a long pin inserted into a hole in the body of the figure, as seen on related ornaments (see MMA 1987.394.56). A row of circular dangles was attached to the top of the wings with thin gold wires; additional dangles were added to the bird’s torso.

Owls were frequently represented in Moche metalwork and ceramics (see, for example, MMA 66.30.5). Nocturnal hunters, the owl was one of the more powerful birds in the Moche bestiary: owls are carnivores and prey on other animals, which may have been of symbolic importance. Here, the artist depicted the owl’s grasping talons as though in full flight approaching its prey. Anthropomorphized owls were also depicted conducting distinctly non-birdlike activities, such as running (see, for example, a pair of ear ornaments, MMA 66.196.40, .41).

This ornament was said to have been found at a site near Piura 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 precise relationship between Loma Negra and the Moche “heartland” remains a subject of debate, however (Kaulicke, 2006).

The Moche (also known as the Mochicas) flourished on Peru’s North Coast from 200-900 CE, centuries before the rise of the Incas (Castillo, 2017). Over the course of some seven centuries, the Moche built thriving regional centers from the Nepeña River Valley in the south to perhaps 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 it is not certain whether the Moche formed a single centralized state, they shared unifying cultural traits such as religious practices (Donnan, 2010).

References and Further Reading

Bourget, Steve. Les rois mochica: Divinité et pouvoir dans le Pérou ancient. 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.

Donnan, Christopher B. and Donna McClelland. Moche Fineline Painting: Its Evolution and Its Artists. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1999, p. 17, fig 1.11.

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