With proud, distinctive features, this Peruvian
aristocrat projects an air of serene confidence. At
the height of the Moche Empire, such vessels
were modeled from life and pressed in molds.
Buried in tombs they sometimes represented the
deceased and sometimes were offered as tokens
of respect form the living. The large tube
earrings this man wears suggests his high social
status. The abstract closed flower on his
headdress and the dark and light paint on his
face are associated with funerary rituals. Though
he cannot speak, when we look upon his face we
understand vital things about his vanished world.
- (PF.1360)
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