The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

by Jeffrey Quilter

Peru’s ancient Moche culture is represented in a magnificent collection of artifacts at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. In this richly illustrated volume, Jeffrey Quilter presents a fascinating introduction to this intriguing culture and explores current thinking about Moche politics, history, society, and religion.

Quilter utilizes the Peabody’s collection as a means to investigate how the Moche used various media, particularly ceramics, to convey messages about their lives and beliefs. His presentation provides a critical examination and rethinking of many of the commonly held interpretations of Moche artifacts and their imagery, raising important issues of art production and its role in ancient and modern societies.

The most up-to-date monograph available on the Moche—and the first extensive discussion of the Peabody Museum’s collection of Moche ceramics—this volume provides an introduction for the general reader and contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions. Quilter’s fresh reading of Moche visual imagery raises new questions about the art and culture of ancient Peru.

Genres: Art, History

172 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2011

About the author

Jeffrey Quilter is a New World archaeologist with expertise in Peru. He is past Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, and of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Reviews

[University of Chicago Magazine]

Jeffrey Quilter, AB’72
Author

From our pages (Mar–Apr/15)—
"Encounter cultures: Jeffrey Quilter, AB’72, digs into the history of human societies for deeper insight into who we are."
http://mag.uchicago.edu