Face-Neck Jar

This redware Moche human face-neck effigy jar shows stylistic similarities with Middle Horizon Wari ceramics, so it probably dates from late in the Moche sequence. The figure wears a headdress and has detailed hair or a cloth headcovering down its back, protruding out from under the hat. The figure also wears a stole or two long thin strips dangling from either side of its neck, with animal heads on the ends. The body of the vessel is ovoid, with two rounded bulges on each side in the general vicinity of human shoulders and arms. Similar (but taller) bulges on other vessels represent mountain peaks, whose spirits (“Apus”) were venerated as gods because their snow-capped peaks are the source of the life-giving rivers flowing through the otherwise barren desert of coastal Peru.