The role of musicians on Moche ritual ceramic's iconography: an analysis of the correlation between sound instruments representations and the attributes of the power elites

• Grant number: 13/02290-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: June 01, 2013
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology
• Principal Investigator: Maria Isabel D'Agostino Fleming
• Grantee: Daniela La Chioma Silvestre
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research intends to map and analyse Moche ceramic artifacts presenting characters playing sound instruments (aerophones, membranophones and idiophones) searching attributes and characteristics that would identify these "musicians" as individuals who concentrate political and religious power. The general aim of the research is to understand if there was a specific acting space for the musicians in the Moche power structures, as well as the relation of these characters with the elites during the Middle Moche Period, an epoch marked by the rising of the elites of the Southern Moche valleys. In this specific context many musicians start to appear broadly in the ritual ceramic's iconography carrying the same power attributes of high status individuals portrayed widely in the iconography and which appear also in the burials of elites (for example, the Owl Warrior, the Lord of the Night, the Coca Taker, among others). The research intends also to identify if existed an hierarchical relationship among specific kinds of musicians and specific kinds of sound instruments (panpipe players, drum players, rattle players, etc.) which would reflect the political and religious status of their specializations. For this purpose not only the iconography will be analyzed, but also the burial patterns related to the Moche power structures excavated in the last three decades. (AU)