 |
| Nose Ornament with Intertwined Serpents, Moche, Peru, 390-450 C.E., The MET |
The Moche were not a single unified people, nor were they considered a unified political entity either. The Northern and Southern Moche shared religious ideologies and practices, using the same iconography for artwork, but were otherwise independent identities. The Southern Moche developed fine crafting skills for ceramics, while the Northern Moche were amazing metallurgists. Among these crafted metals were symbols of royalty, regalia. Regalia included earrings, headdresses, nose ornaments, pectoral pieces, and bracelets. These pieces of regalia were made with fine metals, the Northern Moche were fond of gold and silver, to depict the status of the individual wearer.
This piece is made of gold, two serpents intertwining until the heads would rest on the cheek, the silver plating being the piece that connected to the septum and covered the mouth. Attached to the intertwining bodies of the serpents, there are gold danglers connected in gold wiring to the body that is designed to not only make noise but to reflect light constantly. The intricacy of the piece reflects the power of the Northern Moche. As each piece gets increasingly more intricate and symmetrical, we are able to see the advancement in technology in the Northern Moche's society. The combination of gold and silver itself was a display of expertise, for combining the two required expert knowledge in things such as welding techniques, melting temperatures, and more to bend the metal into these intricate shapes.
So why is this intricately crafted piece of royal symbology important to art history and to overall history? As mentioned in my previous blog post this week, we can learn about the society they derived from, thus learning from the past and have a roadmap to learn in the future. The Northern Moche's beliefs tied heavily to cosmology. Gold and silver were divine colors, almost considered living or animate, and combining them reflected balance and harmony. For royalty to wear them, it symbolled the peace they would have in their ruling. Gold representing the sun while silver represented the moon. By learning that peace was important for the Northern Moche, we can understand their society slightly better than how we did in the past. Thus, this simple piece of regalia that looks like just plain jewelry turns a blurry image of a society into a crisp photograph for us to learn from.
Sources:
Dr. Sarahh Scher, "Moche culture, an introduction," in Smarthistory, August 27, 2016, accessed November 13, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/moche-intro/.
“Nose Ornament with Intertwined Serpents.” metmuseum.org. Accessed November 13, 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/313400.
Wow! This was a really well written piece. Your description was great, and you tied in the cultural significance of the symbology. A common theme that stood out in this section of readings was duality. It didn't matter what culture we were looking at that theme carried through. Here you find it with the gold and silver representing the sun and the moon, male and female, day and night. All of these are representing the duality of our own nature.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with Chipko this was written very good way. I thought it was interesting how they brought together two opposing pieces. Into one significant piece to symbolize a balance between the sun and the moon. I also thought is was cool that this showed what is royalty and what isn't.
ReplyDeleteHello Luna,
ReplyDeleteYour post about the nose ornament of the Northern Moche was quite interesting. I liked how you gave us a brief background of the Moche people. It is crazy to me how a piece like this in this time period was created. I say this because I feel gold jewelry with this much detail at such a finite level is very impressive. I really thought it was very important that you touched base on why this specific pice is important to us in an art history class. Great post Luna.
Hey Luna!
ReplyDeleteThis section was extremely interesting. This was my first time reading about the Moche people. Chipko made the comment about "duality" being a common theme of the chapter and I too think this is a great representation of that. I like how you tied in the beliefs of the Moche to really drive the importance of this fine jewelry and what it represents, as well as highlighting the skills needed to make pieces like this! Nice Job!