Description
Book SynopsisA pioneering analysis of Moche visual iconography that sheds new light on this ancient Peruvian society's beliefs about sex, death, and the afterlife.
Trade Review"Bourget weaves an intriguing narrative that takes off from that large corpus of scholarship already in the public domain...Through the judicious analysis of iconography, Steve Bourget presents an enthralling appraisal of the many separate themes within the scope of life and death as understood by the Moche... In stark contrast to the current vogue, Steve Bourget does not fall for the cheap and easy, gendered interpretations that pervade recent studies of this subject matter. This is laudable. Bourget's book is an impressive contribution to how we might view and interpret Moche iconography."--antiquity 81 (2007)
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1: More Questions than Answers
- Moche Visual Culture
- Subjects, Themes, and Narratives
- Iconography, Archaeology, and Identity
- Presentation Theme
- Wrinkle Face and Iguana
- Ritual Runners
- Ceremonial Badminton
- Coca-Taking Ceremony
- Prisoners and Portrait-Head Vessels
- Copulation with Wrinkle Face
- Summary
- Context and Methodology
- A Dualist System
- A Tripartite Organization?
- Chapter 2: Eros
- Previous Contributions
- Rafael Larco Hoyle
- Anne Marie Hocquenghem
- Susan Bergh
- Diachronic versus Synchrony
- Sodomy
- Ritual Paraphernalia
- Presence of Children in Scenes of Sodomy
- Sodomy and Individual with Fangs
- Masturbation
- Fellatio
- Sexual Depictions on Libation Vases
- Skeletal Beings and Erections
- Anthropomorphic Genitals
- Women and Blood
- Inverted Fertilities
- Vaginal Copulation
- Copulation between Animals
- Copulation between Animals and Women
- Copulation between Wrinkle Face and Women
- Eventual Sacrificial Victims
- Sacrificial Victims and Vaginal Copulation
- Summary
- Chapter 3: Eros and Thanatos
- Chapter 4: Thanatos
- Organization of the Narrative
- The Awakening
- The Exit
- The Reinstatement
- Sacrifice and Capture
- Strombus Seashells
- Archaeological Evidence of an Afterworld
- Summary
- Chapter 5: Dualities, Liminalities, and Rulership
- Dualities
- Sipán
- Huacas de Moche Site and El Brujo Complex
- Iconography
- Asymmetry and Duality
- Liminalities
- On the Structure of Moche Rulership
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
