c. Moche. 2001. The Encyclopedia of World History

The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.


c. Moche

In later centuries, the Andean region witnessed an extraordinary array of state-organized societies with great diversity of culture, art, organization, and religious beliefs. By 200 B.C.E., the Moche state had emerged in northern coastal Peru, flourishing for 800 years. The Moche were maize farmers and fisherfolk, skilled artisans and priests, who traded cotton textiles and other goods with the highlands. They were ruled by militaristic warrior-priests, part of a small, wealthy elite. The undisturbed Moche royal tombs at Sipan have revealed the burials of two warrior-priests, wearing golden masks, surrounded by sacrificial victims and clay pots, and wearing magnificent, finely crafted copper and gold ornaments.	1
The Moche were expert metalworkers, who hammered and annealed gold and copper, the first Native Americans to master metallurgy. Their rulers taxed their subjects for labor, to build and maintain vast irrigation systems and vast monumental platforms and temples.	2


The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.