Book Review: The Archaeology of Mural Painting at Pañamarca, Peru by Lisa Trever

Abstract

Lisa Trever. The Archaeology of Mural Painting at Panamarca, Peru . Washington D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2017. ISBN 9780884024248. xvi + 350 pages, 14 color illustrations, 255 halftones, 67 line illustrations, 1 map. $69.95 (paperback). The north coast of Peru, with a tradition of constructing earthen buildings, was a hub of mural painting. Murals decorated pre-Columbian adobe architecture, including the interior and exterior of monumental architecture, religious centers, plazas, and tombs. Mural painting in the ancient Americas is a practice that extends back thousands of years and, in the absence of a textual record in the pre-Columbian Andes, offers insight to understanding indigenous cosmology and practices. These murals and buildings are rarely encountered intact today, as natural and human forces such as rain, wind, and looting have been detrimental to their preservation. Panamarca, located in the Nepena Valley on the north coast of Peru, is not likely to be a familiar archaeological site to scholars outside of pre-Columbian studies. Vivid, brightly colored murals from the Moche culture, which flourished on the north coast of Peru between 200 and 800 C.E., were discovered and published in the 1950s, bringing the site prominent national and international attention.1 These murals depicted figural imagery of processing priests and warriors, ceremonies, and supernatural beings engaged in battle. At the time, murals such as these were unknown elsewhere. Their figural representations of mythology and ritual have shaped the scholarship of the Moche world and iconography. Mural E, the most well-known of Panamarca’s wall paintings, has been used as an important example of a narrative of human sacrifice and ritual toasting. It features a priestess offering a sacrificial goblet flanked by priests, captured warriors, and human sacrifice. This scene, dubbed the “Presentation Theme” and later “Sacrifice Ceremony,” is believed to be a principal component of Moche religious and political ideology.2 Numerous projects throughout the 20th century …