Spectacled Bear Bottle

This ceramic stirrup-spout bottle was sculpted in the shape of a seated, cross-legged spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) with human arms and hands resting on the knees. The bear wears a cream-colored tunic and a headdress tied under the chin, painted using red-ochre and cream slips (a suspension of clay and/or other colorants in water). The creature’s face features a broad, vertical white stripe in the center, flanked by two red stripes, emulating both the natural coloration of the bear’s face and the type of face paint seen on ceramic portraits of human warriors (see accession number 64.228.21).

Anthropomorphic animals are often depicted in Moche ceramics—both modelled and painted—as well as in mural painting (Donnan and McClelland, 1999; Trever, 2017). Spectacled bears are less common in Moche iconography than other animals, but they may have been revered for certain powers. Spectacled bears may be small in comparison with its North American counterparts, but they are among the largest land carnivores in South America, found in both the cloud forest of the Andes and in the dry Prosopis forests of the desert coast. Although spectacled bears are more herbivorous than other bears, they are also known for their prowess in hunting, capable of bringing down sizeable prey, including deer and llamas. In Moche times they may have been seen as analogous to warriors, known for their strength and their ability to fight and capture prisoners. The bears may also have been associated with the world of the dead, as those on the coast are primarily nocturnal.

The stirrup-spout vessel—the shape of the spout recalls the stirrup on a horse's saddle—was a much-favored form on Peru's northern coast for about 2,500 years. Although the importance and symbolism of this distinctive shape is still puzzling to scholars, the double-branch/single-spout configuration may have been convenient for carrying. Early in the first millennium A.D., Moche potters sculpted the bodies of stirrup-spout bottles into the shape of a wide range of subjects, including human figures, animals, and plants, many worked with a great deal of naturalism. About 500 years later, bottle chambers became predominantly globular, providing large surfaces for painting complex, often multi-figure, scenes.

The Moche (also known as the Mochicas) flourished on Peru’s North Coast from 200-850 A.D., centuries before the rise of the Incas. Over the course of some six 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 the precise nature of Moche political organization is a subject of debate, these centers shared unifying cultural traits such as religious practices (Donnan, 2010). This bottle is said to be from the region around Chimbote (Wassermann-San Blás 1938:100, fig. 175).

Joanne Pillsbury, Andrall E. Pearson Curator, Arts of the Ancient Americas
Hugo C. Ikehara-Tsukayama, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial/Collection Specialist Fellow, Arts of the Ancient Americas
2021

References and further reading

Castillo, Luis Jaime, Cecilia Pardo, and Julio Rucabado. Moche y sus vecinos: Reconstruyendo identidades. (Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima, 2016).

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

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

Donnan, Christopher B. “Deer Hunting and Combat: Parallel Activities in the Moche World,” in The Spirit of Ancient Peru: Treasures from the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera, edited by Kathleen Berrin (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1997), pp. 50-59.

Donnan, Christopher B. Ceramics of Ancient Peru (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992).

Sawyer, Alan R. Ancient Peruvian Ceramics: The Nathan Cummings Collection (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1966).

Trever, Lisa. The Archaeology of Mural Painting at Pañamarca, Peru, with contributions by Jorge Gamboa, Ricardo Toribio, and Ricardo Morales (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2017).

Wassermann-San Blás, Bruno John. Céramicas del antiguo Perú de la colección Wassermann-San Blás (Buenos Aires: Bruno John Wassermann-San Blás, 1938).