The Priestesses of San José de Moro: toward a material approach of personhood in the Moche world.

Summary

After more than twenty years of investigations, the San José de Moro Archaeological Project has discovered a total of seven funerary chambers pertaining to Late Moche "priestesses" (AD 600-850) in one of the most important ceremonial centres and cemeteries located on the North coast of Peru. This attribution was made by the correlation with different elements present in the tomb referring directly to this character. This "priestess set" works as an efficient identification criterion. However, the image of this emblematic Moche priestess became fixated in the collective unconscious. We argue that this aspect of their identity is not the only one we can identify in the grave. With this paper, we move away from the traditional iconographic assignation. Instead, we look into the plural personhood of these women through an analysis of the material correlates found in the tomb. We explore the material data related, along with the architectural and anthropological data, considering the tomb as a "biographical object". Finally, we aim to highlight the singularities of their dividual personhood and consequently draw a more complete portrait of these singular women.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage