Ancient Murals Of Mysterious Two-Faced Beings And Supernatural Creatures At Pañamarca, Peru

Credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Clues to better understanding the religious rituals, political life and societal hierarchy of the Moche people are coming into view as a multi-year excavation continues at Pañamarca, led by a team of women archeologists and conservators from Peru and the U.S.  

Construction of Pañamarca, an architectural complex that sits upon a rock outcrop in the Peruvian Ancash region’s lower Nepeña Valley, is estimated to have occurred between 550-800 CE. 

So far, teams have uncovered what they estimate to be less than 10 percent of extensive paintings created on the adobe walls of the architectural complex at Pañamarca. Work to piece together the narratives revealed by these ancient murals is ongoing. Researchers plan to return to the site in 2023. 

The Archaeological Research Project (PIA) “Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca” is collaboratively led by the international team of Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, Lisa Trever of Columbia University and Michele Koons of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS). The team presented a digital poster detailing their recent findings at the January 2023 meeting of the Institute of Andean Studies in Berkeley, California.   

The Pañamarca site. Credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Columbia are exploring ways to formally support the PIA’s excavation and research in 2023 and into the future. Continual work to uncover, document and preserve the site will enable Peruvians, South Americans and the rest of the world to know and appreciate this important period in human history. 

“We are adding significantly to a body of work that lends insight into the perspectives and priorities of the people who walked this landscape long before us,” said Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, the Peruvian director of the archaeological research project. “These murals are beautiful windows into our past which we’ve never seen before. It’s exhilarating to be leading this work.”  

Recent discoveries at Pañamarca and previous findings at the site over the last century have manifested a more complete throughline for Peruvian history and culture. These findings will be made more publicly accessible than ever before through digital photography, photogrammetric modeling and virtual reality simulation.    

A resurgence in national and regional pride is evident through contemporary artwork, political campaigns, and brand marketing that are all borrowing from the imagery and motifs found on the walls at Pañamarca. 

“Pañamarca was a place of remarkable artistic innovation and creativity, with painters elaborating on their knowledge of artistic canons in creative and meaningful ways as the people of Nepeña established their position in the far southern Moche world,” said Lisa Trever, Lisa and Bernard Selz Associate Professor of Pre-Columbian Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. “Our project has the potential to inaugurate a new period of understanding and appreciation of Moche art, including by contemporary artists who use these ancestral works as inspiration in their own practice.” 

The complementary disciplines of archaeology and art history make this creative and cultural exploration possible. The team has been carefully documenting every detail exposed in the murals and has compared findings to related materials. Together, artifacts and the murals at Pañamarca can tell us more about what the Moche people believed and how they lived. 

“We are eager to return to Pañamarca and continue to share our findings,” said Michele Koons, DMNS Curator of Archaeology, in a press statement. “It is an absolute honor to work at this important monument of the ancient world. We are only beginning to comprehend the mysteries revealed by these murals.” 

Although Moche burials and other sites have been found farther south, there are no Moche structures that match the scale of Pañamarca beyond Nepeña. The Pañamarca murals, therefore, hold the potential to reveal much more about the collective identity and aspirations of the Moche people, who lived long before the formation of the Inca Empire. The team has proposed that the mural paintings — together with the evidence of highland-style textiles and tropical feathers found alongside locally-made ceramics and material culture in the excavations — suggest multicultural relationships and long-distance economies. 

Recent and planned excavation, conservation and documentation efforts at Pañamarca build on previous work there by Trever and her former team; interventions by Lorenzo Samaniego in the 1970s; research by Donald Proulx in the 1960s and 70s, Hans Horkheimer and Duccio Bonavia’s discovery of a fragment of a painted wall in 1958, and earlier work by Richard Schaedel in 1950. 

Credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

The segment found by Horkheimer and Bonavia depicted a female supernatural being, or “Priestess,” participating in the presentation of a goblet in the company of attendant beings and bound captives. This “Sacrifice Ceremony” became a famous, canonical example of Moche art — comparable in its imagery to fineline ceramics made in the Moche heartland. 

The current PIA began in 2018, directed by Hugo Ikehara Tsukayama, to document and analyze the environmental and architectural history of Pañamarca and its surroundings. The project recommenced in 2022, under the direction of Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, to continue the investigation and expand the excavation, conservation, and documentation of Pañamarca’s pillared hall begun in 2010 by the Proyecto Arqueológico Pañamarca-Área Moñumental. 

When the team returns to the site in 2023, they will continue the work of excavation, conservation, and documentation begun last year. The timing of return to the site has been carefully planned for winter in Peru when the weather is most predictable and dry. At the end of the next field season, everything will be reburied for its protection because, left exposed without maintenance, the ancient earthen art will perish. 

Credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

While on site, the team will add to its existing digital collection of photos, visual renderings, and virtual reality assets, part of which will be made publicly accessible online. For now, interested individuals can follow the team on Instagram. 

Tourists can visit the monument by purchasing a ticket at the site entrance booth. The surrounding Nepeña Valley is known for its scenic landscapes, agriculture (including sugar cane, avocados, mangos and asparagus), and production of honey and pisco.

About Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca 

Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca is the official name of the archaeological project at Pañamarca permitted through the Ministry of Culture of Peru. The objective of the project is to study the archaeological site of Pañamarca and its landscape through time, from the oldest detectable occupations to the present. The 2022 season focused on obtaining stratigraphic and constructive sequences of the monumental zone and the opening and conservation of architecture with murals. 

Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer