Domesticating Luxury: A Comparative Study of Moche Fineware Distribution within the Moche Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study examines 188 vessels from the Moche Valley in northern Peru from the Museo Larco online collection, to determine the distribution of Moche bulk luxury items from urban centers to surrounding towns and rural communities. For this study, the term "bulk luxury" refers to the widespread availability of elite goods produced in large quantities that retain a sense of high status among a wide range of people. This definition serves as a heuristic tool for exploring the roles of objects in democratizing luxury while maintaining exclusivity, and how they may have shaped Moche cultural norms and values. We identify two principal urban centers in the Moche Valley, the Huacas de Moche and Galindo, as well as four smaller towns and two rural communities, assessing the influence exerted by urban centers on ceramic designs and motifs across the valley. Peripheral sites demonstrate both a continuation and deviation from urban ceramic styles; narrative fineline vessels are less prominent in smaller locations, but the characters seen on elite fineline vessels are represented in bulk via mold-made sculptural vessels. Due to relative ease of creation, these sculptural vessels were likely used to promote Moche beliefs in an efficient manner to a wider populace.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53781