Sicán Political Economy: Converting Regional Productivity to Interregional Prestige Economy and Religious Eminence

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Within a matter of a few generations, during the late tenth century AD, the Middle Sicán polity with its geospatial focus in the extensive Lambayeque Complex on the north coast attained seemingly unprecedented material wealth and established an interregional sphere of trade and influence primarily along the coast of Peru and Ecuador. The truly black and lustrous huaco rey with its iconic representations of the Sicán Deity and Sicán Lord rapidly spread throughout much of the coast becoming a horizon style. How can we account for these developments? This paper offers an explanatory model based on combined factors of effective management of local resources, refinement and intensification of the local pyrotechnology, and strategic location. The Sicán offered Ecuadorian and Peruvian coastal neighbors superior arsenical bronze and the lustrous black ceramics that conveyed their powerful religious ideology in exchange for exotic items such as mullus. The prestige items in turn became the key enticement to accept the Sicán political and religious leadership.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Political Economies on the Andean Coast   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35685.0