Beaker with frontal figure

This flared beaker likely once held ritual liquids, possibly chicha, a fermented corn beverage imbibed widely throughout what is now South America. Created by artists of the Lambayeque (also known as Sicán) culture, the vessel was fashioned from a blank or ingot that was first hammered into a thin sheet then shaped over a wooden mold. Such standardization allowed the Lambayeque to develop a large-scale industry around metalworking on the northern Pacific coast of Peru, so much so that a single high-status tomb could feature hundreds of metal objects.

As sometimes seen in Lambayeque works of art, this beaker exhibits the digestion of different artistic traditions found across Peru. The front-facing anthropomorphic figure—repeated on both “sides” of the beaker—stands with heels brought together, feet pointing away from the body, and holds in each hand a long staff-like implement. Such details are reminiscent of a figure known as the Staff God that appears prominently in the work of Wari and Tiwanaku artists (c. 500-1000 CE) in the south-central highlands and the altiplano (high plain). The repeating bird-like motifs along the bottom of the beaker, however, likely draw from earlier norcosteño designs of stylized animals found further north, as do the facial features of the standing figure, whose crescent-shaped face and pointed eyes resemble those seen in late Moche fineline paintings (c. 500-800 CE).

Lambayeque artists subsumed such visual traditions into their own practices by 1000 CE, during which time the Lambayeque polity was quickly coalescing into a powerful force in the region. The staff-like objects shown on this beaker, for example, are visual aggregates of two common Moche motifs, the triangular mace head and the rounded shield. These objects of warfare, which are typically associated with ritual violence in Moche depictions, allude to a different kind of notion when melded together and seen in Lambayeque works, namely ceremonial power that more directly invokes divine or ancestral authority. Such adaptations reflect how the Lambayeque cultivated a unique artistic identity, one that combined and transformed existing motifs to denote new meanings and values.

Ji Mary Seo, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, 2023-2024

References

Carcedo Muro de Mufarech, Paloma. “Los vasos en la orfebrería sicán.” In Cultura Sicán: Esplendor preincaico de la costa norte, edited by Izumi Shimada, 107-146. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2014.

Carcedo Muro de Mufarech, Paloma, and Izumi Shimada. “Behind the Golden Mask: Sicán Gold Artifacts from Batán Grande, Peru.” In The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection, edited by Julie Jones, 60-75. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985.

Donnan, Christopher, and Donna McClelland. Moche Fineline Painting: Its Evolution and Its Artists. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1999.

Shimada, Izumi. “El proyecto arqueológico de Sicán: Una caracterización.” In Cultura Sicán: Dios, riqueza y poder en la Costa Norte del Peru, edited by Izumi Shimada, 17-36. Lima: Fundación del Banco Continental para el Fomento de la Educación y la Cultura, 1995.

Trever, Lisa. Image Encounters: Moche Murals and Archaeo Art History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2022.