A pottery stirrup vessel in pale orange clay, decorated with on two sides with a painting that shows a shaman with an animal sacrifice.
Accompanied by a thermoluminescence (TL) certificate.
 
Pre-Columbian Peru: Moche culture V: Circa 500 AD.
 
Condition: Very Fine; complete and intact.
Height 20 cms (8 ins).
 
Provenance: Ex collection N., Germany since 1985.
 
For similar see the Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Harvard University
 
Moche can mean culture of the Peruvian north coast kingdom, the river alongside which the culture flourished, as well as the site of the capital. As a culture, they were contemporary with the Nazca civilization further down the coast but, thanks to their conquest of surrounding territories, they were able to accumulate the wealth and power necessary to establish themselves as one of the most unique and important early-Andean cultures. The Moche also expressed themselves in art with such a high degree of aesthetics that their naturalistic and vibrant murals, ceramics, and metalwork are amongst the most highly regarded in the Americas.