Craft as a record
The Moche (roughly 100 to 800 CE) left no deciphered writing, but their craftspeople recorded their world in clay, metal and cloth. They are not “forgotten” in the sense of being unknown, since collections such as the Museo Larco in Lima, begun by the Peruvian archaeologist Rafael Larco Hoyle, hold thousands of Moche pieces. What follows draws on those objects and on excavations to describe how people lived and worked on the north coast of Peru.
Portrait vessels
The most distinctive Moche objects are ceramic vessels with a stirrup-shaped spout, a loop of clay rising from the body with a single spout at the top. They kept liquid from evaporating, and are typical of northern Peruvian pottery over a long period. Moche potters shaped them in several ways, including by pressing clay into molds, which allowed large numbers of similar pieces to be made. The Moche did not use the potters wheel, as was true across the ancient Americas, and they formed vessels by hand and with molds.
Among them are portrait vessels, which are sculpted heads showing individual faces. They show older and younger people, with scars, missing lips, different hair and headgear, and expressions that seem to differ from one to the next. Because the same face appears in vessels of different ages, some scholars suggest they depict particular people, such as leaders. Others warn that they may show social roles as much as portraits in the modern sense. Either way, they are among the most lifelike faces to survive from the ancient Americas.
Other vessels take the form of animals, plants, houses, and people performing tasks. Painted scenes, drawn in fine lines, show hunting, fishing, weaving and ritual. A smaller group shows sexual themes, whose purpose is unclear and debated. These images should be treated as sources that need interpreting, not as photographs of daily life.
Metalwork
Moche metalworkers were among the most skilled in the ancient Americas. They worked gold, silver and copper, and also made alloys. They used techniques such as hammering sheet metal, soldering, and gilding copper with a thin layer of gold, sometimes through chemical processes that left a surface of gold on the object. Compared with the later bronze alloying of the Old World, their alloys were different, since copper-based alloys in the Andes more often involved arsenic or gold and silver. The tomb at Sipan produced ornaments such as ear spools, headdresses and necklaces with beads shaped like peanuts, and many of these served as markers of rank.
Textiles
Textiles were highly valued throughout the Andes. Cotton grew in the coastal valleys, and wool came from llamas and alpacas in the highlands. Few Moche textiles survive in the humid climate, but fragments and images on pottery show woven and embroidered clothing. The principles of ancient weaving in the region included the backstrap loom, which weavers still use in the Andes. The cloth was part of social display and was buried with the dead.
Farming and fishing
Daily food came from irrigated fields and the sea. Farmers in the valleys grew maize, beans, squash, chili peppers, peanuts, sweet potatoes and manioc, and also gourds and cotton. Irrigation canals brought water from the Andean rivers, and farmers worked fields that were small and carefully managed. Meat came from guinea pigs, ducks and llamas. Fishermen used nets and small craft, probably reed boats like those that are still used on the coast, to catch fish and collect shellfish. Remains of sea lions and shellfish at sites show how important the ocean was.
Settlements and ordinary life
Most people lived in small houses of mud brick or cane, clustered near the fields or near temple centres. Excavations at the Huacas of Moche, between the two big platform mounds, found houses with kitchens, storage jars and workshops, which shows that specialists lived close to the elite. The picture is less complete for rural families, whose homes are less studied. Compared with the well-studied life of commoners in other civilizations, for example Maya commoner life, much remains uncertain for the Moche, especially about family structure and beliefs.
Neighbours and later legacy
The Moche art style is distinct from that of neighbours such as the Nazca culture of Peru on the south coast. After the end of Moche political power in the valleys, the north coast saw other cultures. Debates about why Moche centres declined, which include El Nino floods, drought and political changes, remain open, and no theory has won agreement. After the Moche, local potters and metalworkers carried on traditions that influenced the Chimu, and later the Chimu conquest brought their craftspeople into the Inca world. People in the region today include descendants of these coastal communities.