Moche Site B (ruins of Moche), Moche valley, La Libertad Region
Culture or time period:
Ica 9 (1400-1534)
Collector:
Max Uhle
Collection date:
October 1899-January 1900
Materials:
Shell (animal material) and Spondylus
Taxon:
Spondylus pictorum
Object type:
archaeology
Object class:
Shell samples
Production date:
1400-1534
Accession date:
1903 and July 24, 1903
Context of use:
Spondylus shells from the Moche Valley in Peru. Spondylus was integral in La Libertad region during the Chimú Empire, a highly valued but abundant warm-water bivalve who’s shells were used in many different ways. Spondylus was ground up into a fine dust and scattered before the path of a king by a fonga, a person who specifically scatters the dust, to make a sort of Chimú red carpet. Its reddish color was associated with agricultural fertility, sometimes sacrificed to ensure rain. In whole form, it was very important in Chimú political economy where it was often bartered for other valuable goods such as textiles or precious metals and was also part of state-administered exchanges given its presence on reliefs on public buildings, and that state-related traders, mindaláes, carried them. Not only did water host spondylus but trade along the coast via maritime routes involving spondylus was common. Such a prized possession often indicated social status, as spondylus were frequently found in elite burial sites and fragments adorned expensive goods. Spondylus’s association with agriculture is also true in manufactured goods and in reliefs both bas and alto, where it accompanies depictions of plants such as maize.