Vessel

ClassificationsFurnishings-Serviceware-vessels

Culture Moche

Date400-600 CE

Made AtPeru, South America

MediumCeramic and paint

Dimensions10 7/8 × 5 7/8 × 5 3/8 in. (27.6 × 14.9 × 13.7 cm)

Credit LineBowers Museum Foundation Acquisition Fund Purchase

Object numberF80.9.1

DescriptionThis is a ceramic stirrup vessel dating to 400-600 CE made by the Moche people from the North coast of Peru. Despite the fascinating shape of this vessel, the iconography of its design is perhaps the most telling as it illustrates the clothing and hunting practices of Peru over 1500 years ago. There are several interpretations of the painted scene in which two elaborately dressed figures hunt deer with atlatl and dogs: that it is a noblemen’s hunt, that the hunt is being performed by shamans and is a spiritual hunt, or that it is some combination thereof.

On View

Not on view

Collections