A Pyro-Engraved Gourd from Cahuachi: Iconographic and Technical Analysis of a Nasca Masterpiece

Summary

Pyro-engraved gourds discovered by the "Nasca Project" (CEAP) in Cahuachi, Nasca ceremonial center located in the basin of Río Grande, can provide new data about their manufacture and decoration. From a comparative perspective, we study artifact characteristics and archaeological records to understand an unusually large and complex pyro-engraved found during 1994 excavations as an offering associated with ceramics from the last phase of the Early Horizon (Ocucaje 8-9) and the beginning of the Early Intermediate Period (Nasca 1-3). Now on display at the Museo Didáctico Antonini in Nasca, the gourd has Paracas Necrópolis (Topará) and early Nasca elements in its decoration suggesting the existence of an efficient system of social cohesion based on shared rituals. Objects of power with similar iconography marking shared memory include textiles, ceramics, pyro-engraved gourds, and other artifacts related to funerary cult, ritual feasting and music, which express shared elements of social and political identity. The characteristics of the gourd, the production practices that convert it into an object of power, the stylistic conventions of the ritual imagery and its mythological references illuminate relationships between Andean populations and their environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20257