ART on View 84 MURAL PAINTING The mural friezes that cover the interior and exterior walls of the great Moche temples constitute one of the most striking archaeological discoveries of recent years. These polychrome frescoes, made of dried mud that was then painted with mineral and vegetal pigments, are often as much as three meters in height. Ritual dances, sacrifices, and battles are among the most frequently depicted scenes illustrated in them. Mythical beings, often inspired by the animal world, can be recognized among their figures and include “spider beings,” the snake-foxes, octopi, and seahorses. FIG. 12 (above right): Installation view. Exhibition design by MCBD Architectes, Geneva. © MEG, B. Glauser. FIG. 13 (right): Fresco mural depicting octopi and catfish. Moche, Huacas de la Luna, Huacas de Moché, Moché River Valley, Peru. 6th century. Clay, organic pigments. © MEG, J. Watts/Ministerio de Cultura del Perú, Lima. SYMBOLIC DUALITY The most important organizational principle of the Moche religious and ideological system is unquestionably that of symbolic duality. The notion has its roots in certain natural dualities such as life and death, day and night, or the alternation of the dry and wet seasons. Inasmuch as it creates relationships of contiguity between certain concepts on a symbolic level, duality makes it possible to associate rulers with deities or to establish a transition between the world of the living and the world beyond. In the Lord of Ucupe’s tomb, this principle is often expressed by the arrangement of objects in pairs, like the ceramic owls or the two funerary masks that were placed on the ruler’s face. FIG. 14 (left and right): Mask 1 of the Lord of Ucupe. Moche, Huaca el Pueblo, North Coast, Peru. Middle Moche A, 5th century. Copper, silver, shell, resin. H: 28 cm. Ministerio de Cultura del Perú, Lima, inv. MTRS-0005404. © MEG, J. Watts/Ministerio de Cultura del Perú, Lima.
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