(upbeat piano music)
- [Voiceover] We're standing in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in the galleries
devoted to the pre-Columbian art of South America.
And looking at an object that comes from
what is present day Peru that was made
by the Moche culture.
It's a ceramic bottle and this is one of thousands
of bottles that have been found.
- [Voiceover] It seems to have been something that was
very important for them to produce in large numbers.
We know that they used molds to produce a lot of
their ceramics and so they were making things
in multiples even when they were finishing the
surfaces by hand.
- [Voiceover] And we see some beautiful finished work.
First of all, it's clear that the clay has been
burnished probably with a smooth implement like
river stone or something that would have been
able to produce that very glossy, almost glaze-like
quality, but this is not glazed.
It is, however, very characteristic of Moche's
ceramic ware with this very unusual spout
which is known as a stirrup spout.
- [Voiceover] It's something that we see quite a lot
in Moche vessels that are made for high status consumption.
It's something that is a revival to some extent
of earlier styles that are seen in the Chavin
and the Cupisnique culture and may even
refer to the Moche looking back to those
earlier cultures in their prestige
and claiming it for themselves.
- [Voiceover] So this object that we're looking at,
although itself is very old, could be referring
to something even more ancient.
So let's take a close look at it.
We have this beautiful human face.
This probably male face with a sharp nose
who seems to be looking directly out at us.
The ears are sort of oddly pushed forward
and he's also clearly wearing something wrapped
around his head.
- [Voiceover] He's wearing a head cloth.
In this case, it's been placed over the head
and then folded and wrapped so that you have
what is essentially a kind of cap of fabric
and then another flap coming down the back
and covering most of the hair.
- [Voiceover] You can see its folds and its overlapping,
but you can also see that this representation
presumably of something woven into the cloth
that shows a dragon-like figure or kind of serpent.
- [Voiceover] Yeah, they're referred to usually
as feline serpents because they tend to have
ears and they're a very common motif in Moche art.
You find them everywhere.
- [Voiceover] So this is a ceramic representation
of a depiction in cloth.
You can also see the painting directly on the face.
- [Voiceover] We do see a lot of body painting
both on men and women in Moche art.
There's not been a lot of research that's been
able to show what particular designs mean,
with one exception and we see it here.
- [Voiceover] Here I think you're probably referring
to the very faint rendering that we see just at the chin.
- [Voiceover] Yes, the band that runs along
the contour of the chin, and looks like it has
these three little oblong objects that are hanging from it
and those are meant to be representations
of the pupae of flies.
And as grotesque as that may sound, what it's a reference
to is the sacrifice that was practiced in Moche culture
of warriors who then, were very frequently left
exposed for a certain amount of time for the flies
to devour and for their flesh to at least partially
to decompose and there are some associations
in Moche art of flies as being almost vehicles
for human spirits to the underworld.
And it's a way of marking somebody as someone
who's going to be sacrificed.
- [Voiceover] What's interesting is that the figure
is shown with such nobility and yet we're also
seeing a figure that is to be sacrificed.
- [Voiceover] Well, in the case of the Moche,
it was important that the person being sacrificed
was healthy and strong and brave.
And so he would have been somebody from the elites
who had proven himself in warfare,
but had lost one critical battle.
- [Voiceover] And so, when then is a vessel
like this made?
How was it used?
We know so little about these people.
- [Voiceover] These sorts of objects are not just
being found in graves, they're also being found
in domestic spaces.
In areas that we might think of as being
middle class and so these may have been objects
that were not only used by the elites, but also
given as gifts to the middle class perhaps
as status gifts to help associate them
and to bind them symbolically to the upper classes
and that were part of their participation
in the mythology and the world view of the elites.
That legitimized their rule.
- [Voiceover] I want the face on this vessel
to open its mouth and to tell us exactly what it means.
- [Voiceover] That would be fantastic.
(upbeat piano music)