Beschreibung:

PRE-COLUMBIAN CHIMU CERAMIC VESSEL 1000-1470 AD A ceramic vessel with flat base and globular body, elliptical in plan, tubular neck; the upper body with four panels with reserved designs of figures in bird costume. 770 grams, 23cm (9"). Very fine condition. Provenance From an old private collection; acquired before 1990. Footnotes The Chimú built a capital at Chan Chan, just north of Trujillo. Chan Chan is the largest pre-Columbian city in Peru, covering about 20 sq km, and is estimated to have housed about 50,000 people. Gone, for the most part, is the technique of painting pots. Instead, they were fired by a simpler method than that used by the Moche, producing the typical blackware seen in many Chimú pottery collections. Despite its poorer quality, this pottery still shows us life in the Chimú kingdom. Although the quality of the ceramics declined, metallurgy developed and various alloys, including bronze, were worked. The Chimú were also exceptionally fine goldsmiths. It is as an urban society that the Chimú are best remembered. Their huge capital contained approximately 10,000 dwellings of varying quality and importance. Buildings were decorated with friezes, the designs moulded into the mud walls, and the more important areas were layered with precious metals. There were storage bins for food and other products from their empire, which stretched along the coast from the Gulf of Guayaquil to Chancay. There were huge walk-in wells, canals, workshops and temples. The royal dead were buried in mounds with a wealth of funerary offerings. The Chimú had a highly organised society - it must have been to have built and supported a city such as Chan Chan. Chimor was conquered by the Incas 50 years before the arrival of the Spanish, so there were plenty of survivors from pre-Inca times to dictate the particulars of daily life before the conquest by Inca Tupac Inca Yupanqui. Chimor grew out of the remnants of the Moche culture.