A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography Reading a Culture Through Its Art Donald A. Proulx a sourcebook of nasca ceramic iconography A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography Reading a Culture through Its Art donald a. proulx university of iowa press A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242 Copyright © 2006 by the University of Iowa Press http://www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Design by April Leidig-Higgins No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. All reasonable steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of material used in this book. The publisher would be pleased to make suitable arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to reach. Unattributed figures and photographs are by the author. The University of Iowa Press is a member of Green Press Initiative and is committed to preserving natural resources. Printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Proulx, Donald A., 1939 – . A sourcebook of Nasca ceramic iconography / Donald A. Proulx. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-87745-979-7 (cloth) 1. Nazca pottery — Themes and motives. 2. Nazca culture. 3. Idols and images — Peru. 4. Peru — Antiquities. I. Title. f3429.3.p8p76 2006 985 — dc22 2006044599 06 07 08 09 10 C 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to the three individuals most responsible for inspiring my interest in Nasca iconography, for their friendship and guidance throughout my career. John Howland Rowe (1918 – 2004), my teacher and mentor at the University of California, Berkeley, who introduced me to Peru, guided my research, and taught me the skills of scientific writing. Lawrence E. Dawson (1925 – 2003), who as chief preparator at the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology and leading expert on Nasca pottery shared his wisdom with me and taught me his methods of iconographic seriation. Lee Allen Parsons (1932 – 1984), who as assistant curator of anthropology at the Milwaukee Public Museum first instilled in me a passion for Nasca pottery. Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi » one Overview of the Nasca Culture 1 » two Nasca Pottery and Its Artistic Canons 13 » three The Discovery of the Nasca Style and Its Chronological Placement 19 » four Approaches to the Interpretation of Nasca Iconography 49 » five A Description and Interpretation of the Major Themes in Nasca Ceramic Iconography 61 » six New Insights on Nasca Society 193 Bibliography 211 Index 229 Preface Among the premier art styles of Precolumbian America To provide the reader with some elementary background, is the beautiful polychrome pottery of the Nasca culture the text begins with an overview of the Nasca culture. Next of south coastal Peru. Nasca ceramics, which include both I explore the canons followed by Nasca artists in produc- modeled and painted varieties, display naturalistic render- ing their pottery that distinguish this art style from that of ings of the plants, animals, birds, and fish that were indig- other cultures. A historical section dealing with the discov- enous to their homeland on the coastal desert, as well as a ery of the Nasca style is followed by a discussion of scholars’ myriad of supernatural anthropomorphic creatures whose attempts to develop a relative chronology for the evolution form and meaning are often incomprehensible to West- of the style. Another background section recounts the ef- ern eyes. As the Nasca pottery style evolved through time, forts of earlier scholars to interpret the complex iconogra- many of these motifs became more abstract and abbrevi- phy before I present my own methodology of iconographic ated, further confusing the nonspecialist. analysis. A detailed outline of the main themes in Nasca The purpose of this book is to describe and explain the iconography is presented next, along with my interpreta- form and meaning of the major themes painted on Nasca tion of their meanings. Finally, I use these iconographic pottery and then to use this information to augment our data to augment what we know about Nasca society from archaeological knowledge of Nasca society. The focus is on the archaeological record. iconography — the painted and modeled symbols that rep- resented a complex system of meaning to this nonliterate civilization. Art was the primary means of symbolic com- the size of the sample used for this study was necessarily munication in Nasca society, especially to convey sacred or in constant flux due to the regular addition of new speci- religious ideology. mens to my archive and the shifting of individual pieces Interpretation of the art of a nonliterate society can be from one phase or category to another as analysis pro- a major challenge to the anthropologist and to the art his- gressed. For the purpose of the statistics presented here, a torian. This study utilizes a combination of techniques to total sample size of 6,173 vessels was used. This number is arrive at a plausible Andean explanation of the meaning based on classification by vessel shape, which gives a more encoded in the symbolism. But first a systematic descrip- accurate total than using the sums derived from icono- tion of the main artistic motifs must be presented. Thus a graphic themes (because several themes can be represented good portion of this study is devoted to an outline of the on an individual vessel). The total represents 5,228 vessels major themes displayed on Nasca ceramics. recorded in my photographic archive and an additional 945 Art, like other aspects of human society, changes over vessels published in catalogs or books. These statistics have time. With the Nasca culture we are dealing with a period been used only in the chronological portion of this book, to of at least seven hundred years, during which artistic con- demonstrate changing frequencies from one phase to an- ventions were greatly transformed — sometimes due to other; for this purpose alone the percentages are accurate natural internal evolution and sometimes due to external and useful. The sample of iconographic themes is much contacts with other cultures which influenced the art and larger, for I have been adding to the archive on a daily basis. society of the Nasca people. Some discussion of chronology In this regard, the sample size is closer to 8,000 specimens. and artistic change is necessary here. The minute changes The vessels used in this study come from 151 different col- that allow for a fine seriation of the art style, however, will lections of varying size located in 17 countries. Some are be the subject of another book. My goal is to describe the better documented than others. Although every effort was canons of Nasca art to make them understandable to the made to eliminate vessels of questionable origin and date, general reader as well as the scholar and then to demon- it was not always possible to detect forgeries from photo- strate how this knowledge can lead to a better understand- graphs alone. Among the largest and best-documented ing of ancient Nasca society. collections are those from the Lowie Museum of Anthro-