Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel
Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel

Moche Mountain Sacrifice Scene Stirrup-Spout Vessel

17804

RESERVED

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North Coast Peru, Moche culture, Early Intermediate Period, ca. AD 400–700

Modeled in buff earthenware as a many-peaked ceremonial mountain populated by a dense assembly of small seated attendant figures nestled among its jagged summits, with a larger frontal figure at the base of the massif whose face is marked with a large toothy mouth; vertical body markings, likely denoting the deity Ai-Apaec, a principal deity and a participant in sacrifice scenes, a theme closely related to the Moche belief that mountain summits were the setting for offerings intended to draw rain and blood down into the valley below. 

The cream slip ground is accented with iron-red and dark brown-black pigment picking out headdresses, tunics, and facial markings on the attendant figures, while the arching stirrup spout, its dark chocolate-brown surface burnished to a deep sheen, rises from the rear of the mountain form in the bifurcated handle-and-spout configuration characteristic of the North Coast tradition from the second millennium BC onward. 

Measuring 7 in H. x 6.5 in W. (17.8 x 16.5 cm), the vessel invites direct comparison with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's celebrated "Stirrup-Spout Bottle with Mountain Sacrifice Scene" (acc. no. 64.228.64), in which a five-peaked mountain likewise hosts a cast of human and supernatural figures gathered around a sacrificial narrative, as well as with related mountain-sacrifice compositions housed at the Museo Larco (ML003106) and the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú (C-03300).

Provenance: acquired from the James Weber Collection, San Francisco, California, 1950s–2000.  

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