The Cahuacucho Idol of the Casma culture

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Casma State Material Culture and Society: Organizing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Archaeological Evidence of a Re-emergent Ancient Polity" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2015 Suárez reported the discovery in the high parts of Cerro Cahuacucho (Sechin Valley) of a carved algarrobo (Prosopis sp.) tree trunk, over 2 m long and 118 kg in weight. It was carved on one side with the representation in profile of 5 felines. Because of this feature, it was named "The Cahuacucho Idol". After a complex rescue process, it was transferred to the National Museum in Lima for conservation and the extraction of samples for high precision radiocarbon dating using wiggle-matching, and then returned to Casma. The results of the analysis of the iconography and other features, as well as the archaeometric research carried out on this representative religious artifact of the Casma culture, allow the reconstruction of an important part of the ideology and paraphernalia in force during the Late Intermediate Period in the Sechin Valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Casma State Material Culture and Society: Organizing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Archaeological Evidence of a Re-emergent Ancient Polity   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24968