EMBASSY OF PERU - ART GALLERY

TIME LINE OF THE PRE COLOMBIAN PERUVIAN CULTURES

he Inca Empire was the largest pre-Columbian civilization in the Americas and covered territories of six countries They were experts at turning desert land into arable land and were continuously searching for water. The Nazcas are best namely Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and the north of Argentina. It flourished in ancient Peru between c. known for their lines and drawings of animals that cover a large area of the desert outside the towns of Nasca and Palpa. 1400 and 1533 CE. It was the culmination of a native cultural development in the Andean region. Before the Incas The Nasca lines, as they are known, are shallow designs and were created by removing dark stones and exposing the T

there were many pre-Columbian cultures that preceded them. lighter sand underneath.

Pre-Ceramic and Initial Periods The Moche civilization (also known as the Mochica) flourished along the northern coast and valleys of ancient Peru, in Caral was a large settlement in the Supe Valley, near Supe, Barranca Province, Peru, some 200 kilometres (120 mi) north particular, in the Chicama and Trujillo Valleys, between 1 CE and 800 CE.of Lima. Caral is the most ancient city of the Americas and a well-studied site of the Norte Chico civilization. It flourished It was an urban civilization that had much in common with the Incas. Each town was ruled by a lord, one of them was between the thirtieth century B.C.E. and the eighteenth century B.C.E “Gran Señor de Sipan” or the Lord of Sipan whose tomb was found intact.

Kotosh was the first archaeological site which existed in Peru in 2300—1200 BCE and is located in the sierra of Huánuco. Middle Horizon PeriodThe Wari (Spanish: Huari) were a Middle Horizon civilization that flourished in the south-central Andes and coastal area The Crossed Hands or Manos Cruzadas is the first known sculpture of the era. of modern-day Peru, from about AD 500 to 1000.

Early Horizon PeriodThe Chavin civilization flourished between 900 and 200 BCE in the northern and central Andes and was one the earliest It was the Wari who consolidated the construction of urban cities in the territory; they also built roads to connect the pre-Inca cultures. It was located in Chavin de Huantar, southeast of the Cordillera Blanca. They built large temples, the cities. At present, ruins of Wari cities can be found in Ayacucho, Cusco, Lima, and Mantaro.largest early buildings in Peru. To honor their gods they built huge sculptures such as the Lanzon Monolith, Tello Obelisk,

Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco) was the capital of the Tiwanaku Empire between c. 200 - 1000 CE and is situated in the Titicaca the Raymondi Stellaand carved heads in their building walls. basin. The Tiwanaku Empire, at its largest extent, dominated the altiplano plains and stretched from the Peruvian coast

The Paracas culture was an Andean society between approximately 800 BCE and 100 BCE, with an extensive knowledge to northern Bolivia and included parts of northern Chile.of irrigation and water management and significant contributions in the textile arts. It was located in what today is the Ica

The architecture, sculpture, roads, and empire management of Tiwanaku would exert a significant influence on the later Region of PeruInca civilization.They had developed advanced agricultural techniques and one of their most important crops was cotton.

Using cotton, vicuña and alpacawool they weaved fine-looking multi-coloured tapestries and blanketsand dyed their Late Intermediate Periodcreations with natural dyes of which they created more than 190 different shades.

Textiles were considered a symbol of status. The Paracas were also known for their burial grounds.The Chimú civilization, otherwise called the kingdom of Chimor, flourished on the northern coast of Peru between the Early Intermediate Period12th and 15th centuries CE. With their capital at Chan Chan the Chimu were the largest and most prosperous culture in

The Nazca culture (also Nasca) was the archaeological culture that flourished from c. 100 BC to 800 AD beside the arid, the Late Intermediate Period and forged the second largest empire in the history of the ancient Andes. Their southern coast of Peru in the river valleys of the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage and the Ica Valley. architecture, approach to regional governance, and art would also go on to influence their more famous successors, the

Incas. They were equally skilled in farming, fishing and crafts.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF PERU

Late

Ho

rizo

n

Initial Period Early Horizon Early IntermediatePeriod

MiddleHorizon

Late Intermediate

Period

Cupisnique Moche

Lambayeque

Salinar

RecuayChancay

IchmaLima

Nasca

Huari

Tiwanku

Inca

Paracas

Chimu

1200 800 400 B.C.0 A.D. 400 800 1200 15002500

Caral

MOCHE CULTURE

Map of the north coast of Peru showing the area of Moche occupation.

he moche culture flourished between II and VI century in the valley of the river moche (Now in the province of Trujillo, in the region of La libertad.) this culture was spread across the valleys of the north coast of present-day peru. It was a Tcontemporary civilization to the Nazca culture that occupied the southern coast of peru.

The moche empire was both theocratic and militaristic in nature. There was no central government. It was formed by a group of independent lordships which was governed by a curaca (govemor), each controlling one or more coastal valleys.

The moche society did great works of hydraulic engineering: irrigation canals and dams, which allowed them to expand their agricultural frontier on a large scale.

They were great architects who used adobe as their raw material. They constructed huge religious-adminstrative comprising of palaces and temples or huacas ( in the shape of truncated pyramid). These pyramids were surrounded with large murals of high and low relief, painted with colors extracted from the nature, where they captured their gods, myths, legends and al their cultural worldview. The most notable of these constructions are the huacas of the sun and the moon, in the moche valley.

They were the best metallurgists of their day, they gilded copper much earlier than in Wurope; and they knew a variety of techniques like laminating, hammering, wiring and welding in both gold and silver, making tools, weapons, costumes, emblems, ornaments and all its varied and rich ritual paraphernalia.

Of all the progress achieved by Moche society, it was in ceramics in which they excelled wonderfully, for this reason they are considered as the greatest ceramists of pre-Columbian America thanks to the fine and elaborate work that they did in their ceramics.

The Mochicas reached a high level of realism in their ceramic pieces with the so-called “HUACO PORTRAITS” which depicted moods of people: joy, sadness, anguish and pain. They also represented diseases and racial characteristics in their “pathogen Huacos”. Similarly, they also made the famous “erotic Huacos”, representing sexual acts of people nd animals.

The Mochicas shaped their cultural and religious world in their ceramics, in the form of sculptural images of divinities, men, animals, or by brushing the surface of the vessel with amazing expressions, perfection and realism with which they were endowed. Their pictographs extenuated life and movement in the complex scenes of ceremonies, combats, ritual hunts and probable mythical stories that reflected their conception of the world. Their pottery is therefore the best document and testimony of their culture.

They were great navigators: they built reed rafts, the smaller ones for fishing and larger ones for their trips to the equatorial coast, from where brought the Spondylus shell, sacred to the Moches, and in general, for the rest of the coastal cultures of ancient Peru.

he Nazca culture flourished in the southern coast of Peru in the valleys of Pisco, Chincha, Nazca (rio Grande), Ica y Acari

(South coast of Peru). The Nazca culture did not have a unified government. It was a grouping of local lordships.TstSome of the oldest records of the Nazca cuture are in the 1 century AD, in the final phase of the Paracas Culture (Paracas

Culture). The Nazca culture was a continuation of the Paracas culture since both the cultures had the same customs,

agricultural techniques and militaristic societies. The end of the Nazca culture coincides with the decline of its fine polychrome

pottery and the domination of the Wari culture.

The Nazca culture is known worldwide for its gigantic geoglyphs (the geoglyphs of Nazca and the pampas of Jumana cover

about 450 square kilometers), for its magnificent polychrome pottery with zoomorphic motifs and for its very ingenious

undergound adueducts.

The Nazca lines are found in the arid plains of the aperuvian coast, around 400 km sough of Lima. The Nazca lines were made

between first and fifth centuries. They are among the greatest enigmas of archeology, due to their size, nature, importance

and continuity over time.

The gigantic geoglyphs depict stylized figures of living creatures, plants and imaginary of mythological beings and also

geometric designs made at an unusually large scale with high precision.

However its purpose is still not known, although it has been theorized that is is a gigantic calendar, a result of astronomical

observations.

Lone before the Nazca Lines were discovered, the Nazca Culture was already famous for its coourful ceramics. The

peculiarity of these ceramics is that they show in a very realistic way the ancient world of the Nazca settlers, showing

mainly their daily life, animals, plants, birds, their gods, stylized creatures, including zoomorphic and anthropomorphic

designs, which at times had more than ten colors in a single ceramic. The pottery of the Nazca culture is considered as the

most pictorial and beautiful in the entire pre-Columbian America.

The Nazca economy was based on intensive agriculture. The Nazca managed to solve the problem of dry land on the coast

by using a network of aqueducts, canals and wells that demonstrates a true feat of their hydraulic engineering. The Nazca

also built reservoirs to store water.

NAZCA CULTURE

he Huari or Wari Culture (600 AD – 1200AD) was the first Andean empire (also known as the Wari Empire). It was a fusion of three cultures namely Tiahuanaco, Nazca and Huarpa. Its capital was located at Huari, Ayacucho. It expanded Tall the way up to Cajamarca and Lambayeque in the north to Cusco and Moquegua in the south. Their language was

Quechua.

The Wari Empire was both theocratic and militaristic in nature as it was founded on the basis of a powerful army and religion, with Wirachocha as their chief god. The social and political structure of the Wari state was hierarchized and included and ruling elite, the warrior nobility, the priestly class administrative officials, and the people (artisans, farmers, traders, fishermen, etc.)

The Wari people laid important communication networks and established administrative centres in various regions of their empire to control its vast territory. They built huge stone cities with defensive walls as high as 10 meters and two or three storied buildings that accommodated hundreds of people. The cities mostly had a similar pattern wherein it was divided into quadrants with a semicircular construction in the central part where people used to store goods. It also had a small system of canals and aqueducts through which water was supplied to the public.

The Wari pottery was polychrome and had a variety of styles and forms; however it focused mainly on the pottery of bowls, vessels and pitchers. The ceramics of the Huari were influenced by three cultures in particular: the multicolored ceramics were inspired from the Nazca culture; the techniques of pottery making were derived from the Huarpa Culture; and the pictorial motifs of pottery were taken from the Tiahuanaco Culture.

The characteristic motifs of Huari ceramics are bimorphs, which included symbolic elements drawn with a brush, typically representations of mythical beings with feline head.

Technologically speaking, its textile industry reached great heights in its making which was very diverse and varied in terms of colors. They used tapestry, brocade, double sided fabrics and pieces of fabrics decorated with colorful designed for their dignitaries.

In metallurgy, they worked with gold, silver, copper and bronze. They made luxurious objects for the religious ceremonies and ornaments for the Warina nobility. They also used obsidian, bone, shell and turquoise.

WARI CULTURE