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Brian Billman
ANTH | UNC | CH | USA |
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Anthropology 131 Exercise
Archaeology of South America
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THE MOCHE WEB PAGE ASSIGNMENT
Due Tuesday, March 30
Questions 1 through 5 are for ANTH 110; Questions 1 through 6 are for ANTH 131.
- Select either the Presentation Theme or the Burial Theme. Examine both the complete theme and the close-ups of each segment of the theme. What activities do you believe are being depicted in the theme?
- What sources of information might you use to interpret Moche art (please list several examples)?
- In addition to the Presentation Theme and the Burial Theme, examine the other illustrations on the web site. What types of activities are depicted in Moche art (list at least 5 to 10 examples)?
- Base on these drawings, what inferences can you makes about the nature of Moche society, especially its economic, social, and political structure?
- Is it possible to decipher Moche art without imposing our worldview on the artwork?
- Ideology has been defined as "symbolic phenomena that serve to establish and maintain relations of domination" (see Earle 1997:143). At the beginning of his discussion of Moche iconography, Bawden (1996) states that Moche artwork and monumental architecture "were the active material symbols of an ideology of power, produced at the behest of an exclusive body of rulers, calculated to assert and sustain its authority" (p. 108). Is Moche artwork political ideology (in other words, is it political propaganda)? What other explanations and interpretations are possible?
Please email me your answers to these questions by Tuesday morning, March 30. Be prepared to discuss the web site in class on Tuesday, March 30.
My email address is: bbillman@email.unc.edu. Be sure to include the course number (ANTH 110 or ANTH 131) and your name.
REFERENCES CITED
How Chiefs Come to Power by Timothy Earle | Stanford University Press | 1997
The Moche by Garth Bawden | Blackwell Publishers | 1996
