Sicán culture

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A gold mask of the Sicán culture excavated in Batán in the Sicán National Museum in Ferreñafe, Peru.

The Sicán culture (previously usually called Lambayeque culture) was a flourishing culture in the La Leche Valley on the north coast of Peru in the period from around 700 to 1375, between the end of the Moche culture and the height of the Chimú empire . It is historically linked to the Huari extension, of which it could be a local development. It is a pre- Inca civilization.

Since extensive excavations at the end of the 1970s, the participating researchers have preferred to use the term Sicán culture, which they understand as a smaller section of a long-term, overlapping Lambayeque culture with different characteristics.

background

Location of the La Leche region (yellow) with the sites of the Lambayeque culture in Peru (blue: Lake Titicaca )

Batán Grande near the present-day city of Chiclayo became the political and religious center of the Lambayeque culture between 900 and 1100. They inhabited an area of ​​today's Peru between the ruling peoples of Ecuador in the north and the large areas of the Chimú and Chancay in the south. At the time, the people of the Lambayeque region prospered as a maritime community and traveling merchants.

The etymology of the word "Lambayeque" comes from the Muchik or Yunga language, both were spoken on the coasts of northern Peru and became extinct during colonization. According to Cabello de Balboa's chronicle (1586), “Lambayeque” was derived from the name “NampaIlec”, the mythical figure Ñaymlap.

Architecture and culture

The Japanese archaeologist Izumi Shimada from Harvard demonstrated in 1979 during concentrated excavations around the site of Batán Grande that the Sicán culture produced the most beautiful goldsmith's art of ancient Peru. The golden funeral masks are particularly impressive.

The residents worked the metal with great skill. The tombs of the Batán Grande rulers contained goblets made of gold and silver (keros), emeralds, pearls and so-called “grave loads”, gold masks adorned with semi-precious stones, shells and feathers. Other artifacts made of clay, wood adorned with shells, and textiles depicting sea birds, fish, and clam divers have been found further north in Ecuador. From the letters of Spanish colonists in this region, one inferred that a “Highest Level Responsible” had to create a red carpet out of “Spondyle” shell, which pulverized under the ruler's steps. The textiles and numerous ceramic and metal objects that come from the Lambayeque Valley are a combination of local elements, the Mochicas and the Huari , with distinctive features such as eyes, croissant-shaped headgear and sea motifs.

A figurative representation with exaggerated slit eyes, which often occurs as a decorative motif, was initially mistaken for an image of the mythical "Ñaymlap". It was found during numerous archaeological excavations in the Lambayeque region, particularly during excavations in the Río Saña Valley on red, black and white colored masonry. Identical figures with almond eyes and crescent-shaped hairstyle resemble the image. Ñaymlap is said to be found on Lambayeque's infamous Tumi (made of gold and adorned with precious stones, which was used in the Moche and Lambayeque cultures) in the Museo de Oro in Lima and on various fabric and ceramic objects.

However, the connection between this myth and the finds of the Sicán culture (mainly paintings and gold artefacts) from a narrower time window at the most important sites today is unclear, and the identity of the figure depicted by the Sicán artists on cups and walls with Ñaymlap, his legend was handed down from a completely different time, remains an uncertain assumption.

Main locations

Each pyramid is ruled by a hierarchical society, at the top of which resided a ruler who was revered as a demigod. Pyramids of the Lambayeque culture played a special role, they helped the rulers to borrow the powers of the mountain god. New discoveries show that every place was abandoned after major natural disasters. Indeed, the meteorological phenomena caused by El Niño are particularly violent in this part of the world. The effects of these phenomena were interpreted religiously, for example as an expression of divine anger. Accordingly, the forces of the pyramids had failed to protect the people. The pyramids were then considered cursed and burned in a "cleansing ritual".

Batán Grande is located in the valley of the La Leche River. It is a collection of pyramids also known as Huaca de la Cruz , Huara del Oro , Huaca Colorada and Huaca de los Ingenios , among others . They were made of stones and adobe bricks (clay dried in the sun mixed with straw) and then coated. As a result of a flood, Batan Grande may have been abandoned and set on fire around AD 1100, and a new location was created in Túcume . Around 1350 AD, the territory of the Lambayeque people was conquered by the expansion of the Chimú kingdom, the capital of which is Chan Chan .

View over one of the Huaca districts of Túcume

Túcume is located in the La Leche Valley near the present-day cities of Mochumi and Lambayeque . This vast archaeological complex is also called El Purgatorio . It covers an area of ​​220 hectares and includes 26 pyramidal structures that are likely dated from AD 600 to AD 1000. They represent the heyday of the Lambayeque, Chimú and Huari cultures. It must be a settlement that was built at the foot of the Cerro la Raya mountain, and its circular planes are the remains of residential units, pyramids consecrated to a cult, terraces and courtyards included. There you can find references that range from the original Lambayeque to the Inca occupation, as testified by two remarkable buildings: the “Huaca Larga” with colossal dimensions of more than 700 meters, made of adobe bricks, and the small “Templo de la Piedra” Sagrada ”, which was studied by the archaeologist Alfredo Narváez . This provided a lot of information about religious practices from the time of the Lambayeque. Túcume was apparently abandoned when news of the arrival of Spanish armies riding on extraordinary animals (a horse had never been seen before), causing panic to the population. In 2005, 119 decapitated bodies with traces of drugs were found; apparently human sacrifice. When the offering did not work, the place was abandoned and cleaned.

The legend of Ñaymlap

Ñaymlap's existence as the legendary founder of a ruling family in the Lambayeque Valley was recorded in writing by the chronicler Cabello de Balboa in the 16th century .

According to this, Ñaymlap reached the shores of the Lambayeque coast with a retinue of forty noblemen and numerous women and servants on a boat made of plaited reeds. It was probably from the Pacific . Some historians, like Thor Heyerdahl with the Kon-Tiki , put forward the hypothesis of oceanic migration to Peru . Ñaymlap took possession of the Lambayeque Valley, of which he then became king.

See also

literature

  • Izumi Shimada : Goldsmith's art of the ancient Peruvian Sicán culture. In: Spektrum der Wissenschaft 6 (1994), pp. 88-95 ( online publication ).
  • Izumi Shimada: States on the north and south coast. In: Laura Laurencich Minelli (Ed.): The Inka Empire. Origin and fall. Translated from English by Dieter W. Portmann. Bechtermünz, Augsburg, 3rd edition 1999, ISBN 3-86047-916-4 , pp. 49–110 (first edition 1992, German first edition 1994).
  • Izumi Shimada: Who were the Sicán? Their Development, Characteristics and Legacies. In: ders. U. a. (Ed.): The Golden Capital of Sicán (exhibition catalog, Tokyo 2009), pp. 25–61 ( online publication ).

Web links

One hour lecture by Izumi Shimada on Sicán culture at Utah Valley University, given in February 2011:

both accessed on January 6, 2016.

Other web links:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Described in 1985 by Izumi Shimada (exhibition catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York: The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection. P. 66 and Fig. 6, limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ↑ a b Izumi Shimada and Paloma Carcedo Muro: Behind the Golden Mask: Sicán Gold Artifacts from Batán Grande, Peru. In: Julie Jones (curator): The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection (exhibition catalog), New York 1985, pp. 61–75: 73 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).