Peru and The Digging. There is always Digging!

San Jose de Moro, Peru

We are working two sites right now of Moche civilization.  The Moche were before the Inca civilization that most people are familiar with.  The Moche were from 100-800 A.D.  The Incan civilization only dates back to about 1300 A.D. The sites we are working are 3 pits at San Jose de Moro and 3 areas of the mountain Cherro Chepen.  The Moche were known at the Greeks of South America.  I had read a lot about the Moche but being here in Peru and seeing the San Jose, Cherro Chepen, Sipan, Pacatnamu, and Dos Cabezos sites already I can’t begin to tell you how impressive the Moche were.  They are best known for their pottery.  One type of pottery has what is known as “fineline drawings”. Here is a piece of the pottery and a scene drawn out on the pottery so you can see how beautiful it is.  Well, except for the bottom middle where they're slashing the prisoner's throat.

 

There is no language written for the Moche and no written record for their civilization so these fineline drawings and the friezes at some of the Moche sites are all that is available to reconstruct how they lived, their social lives, etc..  One amazing thing that all of us are so surprised is that the ground is covered with broken pottery.  It feels like it all should be picked up and cataloged but there is so much it is just ignored.  Is anybody besides Gary Carter land Dr. Fuertes listening to this spiel about the Moche that I just described? Sorry if I'm boring you.  You have to be here. HAHA.

One of the fineline drawings depicts a sacrifice and presentation scenes that have different characters always drawn the same.  In recent time (20 years) some of the Moche burials uncovered have matched these characters and changed how archaeologists and anthropologists view these pottery drawings.  It is now thought that the scenes were real events and not necessarily mythologic events. 

One of the characters is a priestess and 5 priestess’ have been found at the San Jose de Moro site since evacuation started 20 years ago.  San Jose was the site of a brewery and elite burial ground.  Many large paicas (large pots) have been recovered including one I got to uncover last week.  I had such goosebumps uncovering something that hadn’t been touched since for 1500 years. 

It seems to the professionals that San Jose was a place people gathered, not lived as regular households.

The other site being worked is Cherro Chepen.  It is a mountain we can see from our hotel.  There are many, many walls built up on the mountain and it is believed that the Moche moved to the mountain later in their history for possibly having a defensive position. 

I worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at San Jose, Area 35A picture of our worksite.  Yes those are homes, some of them our Peruvian worker’s homes complete with the outhouse out back, in the background.  There is a little shaded area for our things.  Cows come by every morning and cross by the pit.  The townspeople come and go and walk through the complex.  They stand and watch us.  I saw goats herded through on Friday. 

and then I am working 6 days at Cherro Chepen.  I will then go back to San Jose.  Everyone works a rotating schedule on the mountain with three different grad students.  I work with the one that is lower on the mountain.  I’m pretty sure I can’t make it all the way to the top of the mountain.  It gets more difficult.

Here is our team leader Vanessa on the first day explaining the burials that have been uncovered in Area 35 at San Jose.

We have a ramp to walk into our site instead of a ladder!

Here are the two of the four Peruvian workers in our area: Richard and Dario.  The regular workers are excellent archaeologists and have been with the program for many years.  Some were previous looters before working permanently with the program.  I worked for the first time on this skeleton after watching Richard and Dario for about 20 minutes.  The dry air here makes it possible to find textiles such as the shroud on this skeleton still intact in some places.

See the textile pattern.

Random: My Peruvian tan after only 3 days and 50 sunscreen:

Last Wednesday 4 of us students, under close supervision of course, uncovered this skeleton complete with beautiful Moche pottery and copper pieces.  Much of the shroud textile was intact and we were able to see the weaving pattern. 

The two pots on bottom right are a man and a woman.  The pots are stunning and perfect.  The green is copper.  There was also a handmade weaving tool on top of the skeleton.  I didn't take my camera and someone e-mailed me these photos so I'll see if I can get some of the pics from others with their cameras with all of us around the burial.  I'll write about Cherro Chepen later.