The site of Sipán in Peru is a dramatic example of archaeological research into the ancient Moche culture.
A series of spectacular tombs at dated at approximately AD 300.
The Moche also left pyramids, towns and villages, pottery and metalwork, and many other artifacts.
Looters discovered the first tomb at Sipán and would have destroyed the others if the police and archaeologists had not intervened.
The excavation at Sipán was not typical.
The contents of these tombs documented the wealth and power of the rulers of the Moche civilization.
Peru and the Moche
The combination of the cold Pacific waters and the massive Andes Mountains works together to create one of the driest places on earth.
Preservation is very good in such dry conditions.
River valleys were the focus of a series of prehistoric societies before the Spanish arrived in AD 1533 and conquered the indigenous populations.
Beginning around the time of Christ, a major civilization emerged in the Moche River valley on the north coast of Peru and rose to dominate the region over the next 500 years.
The center of this civilization was at the site of Moche itself, with a population of perhaps 10,000 people.
Two major pyramids — the Huaca del Sol and the Huaca de la Luna — dominate the horizon at Moche.
The Moche civilization encompassed a series of coastal valleys over a distance of 550 km from the north to the south.
Trade relations extended even further.
There were large Moche centers with major construction in six of the river valleys.
Adobe bricks were used to build pyramids, temples, palaces, and fortresses.
People also lived in farmsteads and villages. They dug irrigation canals up to 100 km long to bring water from the Andes to their fields.
Corn, beans, guava, avocados, squash, chili peppers, melons, cotton, and peanuts were cultivated.
The sea and its estuaries provided an abundance of fish, shrimp, crabs, crayfish, and mollusks.
Domesticated animals included the llama, guinea pig, and ducks.
Wild plant and animals were collected and hunted as well.
The Moche created a variety of arts and crafts made of many different materials.
They left no written records.
Much of the art was associated with ritual and ceremony and with the upper crust of this society.
Textiles of cotton and wool were spectacular.
Moche pottery is among the most spectacular produced anywhere at anytime.
Moche society appears to have collapsed suddenly around AD 800.
The cause of their demise is unknown, but thought to have involved either conquest by outsiders or some kind of environmental or climatic catastrophe.
Discovery An important Moche center is found near the village of Sipán in the Lambayeque Valley
There are three massive pyramids and adobe structures known collectively as the Huaca Rajada.
The largest structure covers an area the size of a soccer field and rises almost 60 m, the height of a 20-story building.
The looting of archaeological treasures been probably been going on in Peru at least since the time of the Inkas.
People at Sipán have been robbing archaeological sites in the area for generations.
The Peruvian government outlawed looting and trafficking in prehispanic artifacts almost 50 years ago.
In November 1986, local looters started tunneling into the third and smallest pyramid at Sipán.
They dug deep into the structure and beneath the royal tomb of a Moche ruler.
The looters removed at least 10 large sacks full of extraordinary gold, silver, and gilded copper objects and destroyed other materials that were of no interest to them.
The director of the Museo Nacional Bruning in Lambayeque, Walter Alva, was called in by the police to help identify the stolen materials.
Alva decided to immediately organize an archaeological project.
Excavation
Archaeologists uncovered three fabulous tombs in the small adobe pyramid at Sipán.
In each case, the central figure was elaborately costumed
The tombs were named after the presumed role of the individual in the central burial.
The tombs belonged to the Lord of Sipán, the High Priest of Sipán and the Old Lord of Sipán.
When the excavations began, the skeleton of a twenty-year-old man wrapped in a cotton cloth was found.
He was probably a warrior, intended as a guardian for the treasures below.
Beneath the warrior was a coffin.
The three shrouds were wrapped completely around the contents of the coffin.
The coffin yielded many artifacts.
There were spear points, a headdress with feather ornaments, an ingot of pure gold about the size of child's hand, and human figures of gilded copper.
There was also a large, headless figure of gilded copper with arms and legs.
Several complete pectorals were removed in a painstaking excavation process.
Some artifacts were found near the skeleton in the coffin.
There were four large nose ornaments, along with three pairs of ear ornaments.
It appears that the entire ceremonial wardrobe of the warrior-priest was buried with him.
The lower face was covered with a gold sheet shaped into a life-size replica of the upper neck, chin, mouth, and cheeks.
Many gold and silver artifacts were placed on or around the body.
Two elaborately decorated scepters were found.
More treasures were found below the body.
There was an enormous crescent-shaped gold headdress ornament, more than 60 cm in width.
Also found was a gold and a silver back flap, large metal fins about 45 cm in length that hung from the back of the costume.
Both backflaps depict a fanged human figure holding a sacrificial knife in one hand and a human head in the other.
There is a sense from the coffin and its contents that every item, every color, every material, every location was fraught with meaning.
The other finds in the tomb, surrounding the coffin, were also remarkable.
The tomb itself was a large chamber cut into the pyramid, approximately 12 x 10 m in area and about 6 m high.
Eight other individuals were buried in the tomb.
Analysis
Much of the conservation of the materials from the tombs at Sipán will continue for years and the results are gradually being reported.
Various specialists are involved in the conservation and analysis of the materials.
John Verano of Tulane University was responsible for studying the human remains from the Sipán investigations.
He analyzed several hundred Moche burials from this area.
Most individuals who survived infancy and childhood eventually died between the ages of 35 and 40.
The average height for Moche males was 5'3" and 4'11" for females 147.
The skeleton in the coffin was a male, approximately 35-45 years of age and 5'5" tall.
The teeth were in good condition.
The skeleton was badly preserved.
The back of the head was flat showed occipital flattening.
There is no evidence of the cause of death.
The metal objects in the tomb are both spectacular and technologically quite sophisticated.
The Moche were extraordinary metal workers.
There were hundreds of metal objects in the lord's tomb.
Many were gilded copper, made using a technique apparently known only to the Moche.
The Center for Materials Research in Archaeology & Ethnology
Heather Lechtman is an archaeologist at MIT and an expert on ancient metallurgy.
She analyzed the plated artifacts and was able to determine how they were made.
Lechtman is one of the founders and the director of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology & Ethnology.
The goal of the organization is to promote the use of science and engineering in the pursuit of archaeology and ethnography.
Members provide faculty, staff, and laboratory facilities for research and education in the technological study of cultural materials.
Interpretation
The contents of the tomb and coffin are evidence of the indisputably high status and power of rulers who controlled the lives of their subjects.
The grave contents of the Lord of Sipán suggest he was a warrior and priest.
This individual was often depicted in paintings on Moche ceramics as the overseer of sacrificial ceremonies.
Sacrificial offerings seem to indicate that key participants in the Sacrifice Ceremony were buried in the pyramid and that the event itself probably took place on or near the pyramid.
A series of small rooms contained ceramics vessels, quantities of wood ash and organic residues, llama and human bones, and a number of miniature copper objects.
These materials suggest the remains of feasting.
Information on the nature of Moche society can be garnered from the burials in the tombs and those found in cemeteries and villages.
The important burials from the tombs reflect four different categories of individuals, including ruling lords, priests, military leaders, and the retainers and assistants to these individuals.
There was a series of sacrificial victims in the tombs that may represent slaves or prisoners or volunteers.
The most numerous burials in Moche society are of common people, interred in simple graves.
Knowledge of the ideology of the Moche also comes from the finds and other sources of information.
Several different groups in South America associate color, metals, and concepts of the cosmos and afterlife.
Silver and gold had complementary cosmological meanings.
Protecting the Past: Tourism and a New Museum in Lambayeque
Peru has benefited greatly from the discoveries in both material and ideological ways.
The Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum provides access to the most important archaeological finds from the site.
The Lambayeque region is now on the tourist route and Sipán is a major attraction, helping the economy of the region.
