Check out Kayleigh's video on the Lord of Sipan here!  https://youtu.be/dZCX2_ANWhU

The realism on these portraits is on par with classic greek sculpture

I have to admit I had never heard of the Moche, but that pottery is simply incredible. I had no idea something like that existed.

I enjoy the contrast between the lifelike, naturalistic pottery and the stylized figures they painted.
It really drives home how cultural development in art isn't some sort of straight line of progress from "primitive" iconography to realism. Moche artists clearly had a very good handle on what people "really" looked like. They just didn't always choose to depict them that way.

these guys had some crazy good artists holy shit

As someone who's tried making clay models it is difficult as hell (at least for me) so I both deeply admire and envy these people, insane stuff

My jaw actually dropped seeing some of this art. I'm so happy that you keep introducing me to such fascinating cultures and archeology.

The pottery faces are absolutely jaw-dropping

I'm Chilean and went to Northern Peru years ago, and was very impressed visiting some of these sites ( also the beaches and the food, lol). I consider myself a history nerd but for some reason I barely knew anything about the Moche! It's weird us here in Chile - at least until de 1990s, when I was a kid - aren't taught about these cultures, beyond just the Inca, when we're so close to this area. I hope kids nowadays and in the future have greater knowledge of all the different cultures there were in South America

I'm really surprised by the great artistic capacity that the Moches had, they were able to portray realism that they could achieve in ceramics (and not just any realism, I am talking about real realism, without the intervention of aesthetics or beauty requirements, they were not afraid to represent even the slightest wart on the face) , while giving equal attention to their abstract and simplified representations, they could see beauty in the harmonious geometry and colorful patterns. It's a shame that we can never appreciate all his works that were lost in time.

One thing I love is that the moche clearly depicted captured warriors from the area between them and the Recuay culture, generally shown with more facial hair and round dangling earings. The iconography show Moche man fighting warriors wielding stone mace, used in the Highlands but not by the moche, and wielding slings, unlike the moche who used spear throwers. Finally these foreigners wear on their back or front some sort of bags covered with/containing heads, potentially shrunken heads of enemies, a recurring motif in Recuay art of warriors. So will one shouldn't go as far as to say their is an attested war between the two cultures, the Moche definitely fought very similar cultures and even knew that they used poporos, which are not common in Moche's hand but are seen used by these foreigners.

Moche culture is one of my favorite of my country. Some years ago my family and I went to a roadtrip to visit some moche sites. We kinda got lost looking for la señora de Cao museum, we ended in the huaca cortada site xd. One of my favorites museums is the tumbas reales de Sipán :D

I have been there, honestly very interesting culture , you should add the Dama of Cao a queen priest who was very powerful,  I visited all that part of Peru ..there is a lot of information about the artwork , I have been studying the iconography for years and using it on my art I would recommend visit there

Ah.. love it. Took enough classes in college for a minor in anthropology. Loved archeology and history of South America. Moche, Chimu, the Inca. How the Spanish came to control the empire was also interesting. The notable feature of the cultures on the West coast was how the toppled the tidy theory of civilization development. Totally wrecked the agricultural to pottery to weaving “progression” found in the Levant.

Absolutely magnificent! So proud of our Latino & Amerindian ancestors. Beautiful art, culture and history.

I used to work on Trujillo municipality tourism office (the cities were the Huacas are). They told me that the San Pedro alucinogen (which you didn't mention and used to be VERY important for their ceremonies) was the anticoagulant.  They also consummed magic mushrooms, there are some vessels of plp with mushrooms on their heads.

oh gosh i love the portrait vessels! i love seeing ancient art that's so realistic bc it really helps to drive home that ancient peoples were just as capable of realism as modern folk which helps to avoid stereotyping ancient folk as "lesser" (also they just look really fucking cool)

This is such a ridiculously high quality educational Youtube channel.

I love explicit ancient erotic art. I think it should be talked about more often cause they one of the most humanizing artifacts of ancient people.

It's amazing that they virtually perfected pottery techniques thousands of years ago