Capturing Warfare

Sections

Moche at War

The Moche Archive of photographs and drawings, created by Christopher Donnan and now housed at Dumbarton Oaks, is a remarkable resource for the study of Moche civilization. Flourishing on the north coast of Peru between 100 and 800 CE, the Moche created ceramic vessels richly decorated with detailed, fineline paintings that relate complex tales. The surviving ceramics provide a wealth of information about Moche society and iconography. In 1966 Donnan began to document the art of the Moche by photographing the vessels, while his colleague, Donna McClelland, began drawing the images found on them. The archive that Donnan assembled now consists of approximately 160,000 photographs of Moche objects from museums and private collections around the world, accompanied by McClelland’s drawings.

The fineline paintings that wrap around Moche ceramic vessels cannot be captured by a single photograph, so Donna McClelland’s drawings enhance access to the thematic contents of the vessels’ decoration. These drawings, created to facilitate study of the ceramic vessels, are art objects in their own right. McClelland described the challenges of her process:

“The problem of making a flat rollout drawing of the design on a spherical vessel is similar to that of a cartographer making a flat map of the spherical earth. Something similar to an ‘orange-peel’ map, rather than a Mercator projection must be created. Spaces are left at the top and bottom of the drawing to account for the conversion from a three-dimensional to a two-dimensional drawing. The need for this extra space must be balanced against the need to have figures interact and be juxtaposed in a manner similar to the composition on the vessel. This requires an understanding of the art to know where these juxtapositions should occur.” (Moche Fineline Painting, 1999; HOLLIS)

For the purposes of this exhibit, we have selected several drawings of images of warfare. Over the centuries, Moche artists painted a variety of subjects, including abstract geometric patterns, animals, supernatural figures, and scenes of ceremony and everyday life. Warfare was a recurring theme, especially in Phases IV and V, the Middle and Late Phases of Moche civilization.

Moche artists frequently depicted warriors and warrior activities, and hundreds of these depictions can be found in museums and private collections today. The combat they depict appears to be ceremonial rather than militaristic. There are no depictions of warriors attacking castles or fortified settlements, or killing, capturing, or mistreating women or children. Moreover, there is no portrayal of equipment or tactics that involved teams of warriors acting in close coordination. We see no regular formations of troops like Greek phalanxes, or siege instruments whose operation would have involved trained squads of individuals. Although there are a few depictions of two warriors fighting a single opponent, the essence of Moche combat appears to have been the expression of individual valor, in which the warriors engage in one-on-one combat. Only rarely were combatants killed; the goal appears to have been to capture the opponent for ritual sacrifice.

The elaborate clothing and ornaments worn by Moche warriors indicate that they were people of high status -- almost certainly members of the aristocracy. They must have willingly participated in combat, even though capture and sacrifice of some of the participants would have been the predictable outcome.

Lienzo de Quauhquechollan

During the early colonial period, the indigenous people of Central Mexico painted cartographic histories on large cloth panels. These pictorials are known as lienzos, from the Spanish word for cotton cloth. In this usage, the word is similar to the English word canvas.

One such indigenous pictographic document is the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, a pictorial that recounts the story of the conquest of Guatemala. The creators of the document belonged to the Nahua community of Quauhquechollan, located in the region of present-day Puebla, Mexico. The Quauhquecholteca allied themselves with the Spanish to conquer the communities in what is now southern Mexico and Guatemala. This document portrays the 1527-1529 campaign of Spaniard Jorge de Alvarado, as seen by the Nahua warriors. The Quauhquecholteca created it to inform their own community, to document their vital role in the conquest, and to legitimize their privileged position in the new order.

The original Lienzo de Quauhquechollan is in the collection of the Museo Casa de Alfeñique, in Puebla, Mexico. With the support of the Banco G & T Continental, the Universidad Francisco Marroquín of Guatemala digitally restored the document. A digitally restored copy, along with an animated recreation of the story, is on exhibit at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City.