Bead

Necklaces of composed of large gold or silver beads were objects of prestige and power in ancient Peru and have been found in multiple elite Moche burials (Bourget, 2014; Alva and Donnan, 1993; Donnan, 2022). This bead—one of what may have once been part of a strand of perhaps five beads—features a large, supernatural face.

Moche beads such as the present example were made from hammered gold sheet shaped into two hemispheres that were subsequently soldered together. Many, if not all, beads once contained small metal pellets or seeds that rattle when the beads move. (In those beads that do not rattle, it is likely that the metal beads have fused to the outer shell by corrosion or have decayed.) The present example contains a small copper pellet that would have rattled as the wearer moved.

On this bead, the supernatural face was raised by working the gold sheet from behind, a technique known as repoussé. The supernatural’s large eyes and mouth were likely once inlaid with shell. The head has two appendages under the chin, perhaps arms, and four curled elements extending from the top of the head. The extensions from the side of the head may represent the muzzle of a canine or fox with the jaws open and tongue protruding.

The supernatural represented on the bead is reminiscent of the fierce face depicted in the brightly painted architectural reliefs at an important Moche site now known as Huaca de la Luna, in the Moche Valley on Peru’s North Coast. Similar faces are repeated across the interior walls in the Great Patio, in the lower level (Uceda Castillo, 2001: 55, fig. 11).

Moche high ranking individuals were usually buried with multiple necklaces composed of beads of different dimensions, the outer strand having larger size beads. Beads with images of warriors, spiders, snails, frogs, felines, peanuts, owl and monkey heads, as well as geometrical forms have been found in both gold and silver, and sometimes with combinations of the two metals. Some beads were inlaid with shell or stone (see, for example, MMA 1974.271.32a-i). Necklaces of 5, 10, and 20 beads are common.

At 12.7 cm in diameter, this bead is one of the largest known. Necklace beads were generally between 3 and 8 cm in width, although beads as large as 12 cm have been described (Alva and Donnan; 1993; Bourget, 2014; Donnan, 2022). The large beads in Moche necklaces usually did not extend to the nape, as depicted on their ceramics and inferred by the limited numbers of beads excavated in burials.

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

Alva, Walter, and Christopher B. Donnan. Royal Tombs of Sipán. Los Angels: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1993.

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 A. La Mina: A Royal Moche Tomb. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2022.

Uceda Castillo, Santiago. “Investigations at Huaca de la Luna, Moche Valley: An Example of Moche Religious Architecture.” In Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, pp. 47-67. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2001.