CHIMÚ1100-1470AD

Intro to ChimúThe Chimú are the predecessors of the Inca and the people to develop from the Moche culture.

The Chimú are a highly developed agriculture based society.

Chimú society was based on farming, which was aided by immense irrigation works.

system of social classes ranging from peasants to nobles.

They produced fine textiles and gold, silver, and copper objects.

They also made pottery in standardized types, which they produced in quantity using molds.

Between 1465 and 1470 the Chimú were conquered by the Inca. The Inca absorbed much from Chimú culture, including their political organization, irrigation systems, and road engineering, into the vast empire they created.

ChimúCulture: Chimor

People: Chimú

Capital: Chan Chan

Population: 300,000 at its height.

Location: Northern coast of Peru and southern Ecuador

Chan Chan

The Chimú urban capital of Chan Chan housed thousands of specialized artisans living in densely populated areas close to the monumental architectural complexes.

These artisans—potters, metallurgists, bead makers, woodworkers, and weavers—were closely supervised by members of the ruling elite, who provided raw materials and controlled the symbolic content of artistic production.

The Chimú elite had to maintain contacts with populations from the Amazonian Basin in order to be supplied with foreign materials such as brilliantly colored feathers.

ArtThe Chimú are best known for their distinctive monochromatic pottery and fine metal working of copper, gold, silver, bronze, and tumbaga (copper and gold) as well as feather work. Chimú ceramics are mass-produced*

The pottery is often in the shape of a creature, or has a human figure sitting or standing on a cuboid bottle. The shiny black finish of most Chimú pottery was achieved by firing the pottery at high temperatures in a closed kiln, which prevented oxygen from reacting with the clay.

Sleeved Tunic • The production of cloth was highly

developed in ancient Peru.

• Textile garments conveyed important social, political, and religious messages depending on the materials and the imagery elaborating them.

• Andean weavers were full-time specialists

• The sleeved shirt features eight boldly rendered figures on each face of the tunic.

• One figure each appears on the front and back of the sleeves. All have wide open, staring eyes and toothy mouths.

• Some figures appear catlike, with pointed ears and tails, while the others seem more human, wearing crescent-shaped headdresses. The unusually long tail of one "cat" seems to wrap around the neck of the seated figure below it.

Tunic with Felines

Feathered Crown

Even more prestigious than woven textiles to Chimu elites were feather-covered and applique gold garments.

Brilliant tropical feathers were acquired via the extensive trade network.

Feathers (Paradise Tanager, Macaw), cotton, skin, cane, copper

Feathered TunicPeru, Chimú

Feather workers used a few coastal birds such as cormorants, egrets, ducks, and flamencos for their white, black, and pink feathers.

However, the most popular feathers came from the rainforest. Macaws, parrots, parakeets, curassows, and tanagers provided the most vivid colors: yellow, green, blue, purple, and turquoise.

This tunic includes feathers from Muscovy Ducks, Razor-billed Corassows, and Amazona parrots and macaws, and depicts sea birds in squares of alternating colors.

In Chimú religion, sea birds such as pelicans were closely associated with the idea of human and agricultural fertility.

Feline Bottle• ceramic production emphasized efficiency

and repetition rather than artistic and technological excellence.

• Chimú learned their ceramic techniques from the Moche

• Some vessels, even though made in molds, as is the present example, are well modeled with perfectly finished surfaces.

• Their quality implies a considerable investment of time and skill.

• Most Chimú ceramics have dark grey to black surfaces

• Stirrup spout bottles are common among Chimú ceramic forms.

• Chimú examples are noted for the presence of a lug at the junction of the spout and stirrup.

• Here, there is a small monkey; others have a bird or a simple lug. This bottle depicts a feline lying atop a rectangular chamber.

Metallurgy By the time the powerful Chimú kings had established their desert kingdom on Peru's north coast in the fourteenth century, precious-metal production in that region had reached unprecedented levels.

Objects made for the elite had become ostentatious displays of wealth and technical virtuosity.

Earflare-displays of wealth and technical virtuosity,

- Of thin, hammered sheet gold, they are remarkably light in spite of their size.

- They are decorated on the frontals with complex multifigured scenes.

- A Chimú lord, wearing a large headdress and ear ornaments, and holding a beaker and a fan, is shown standing on a litter supported by two men.

- Their huge, flared headdresses, decorated with cut-out and repoussé designs, echo the rhythm of the small spheres encircling the rims of the frontals.

- The shafts are embellished with a delicate chased repeat of crested birds in a diamond grid.

Panpiper VesselSilver

Made of many separate pre-shaped pieces of sheet silver joined by soldering, this engaging vessel in the shape of a man playing a panpipe is quintessentially Andean.

He is dressed in a tunic and loincloth and carries a small bag over his shoulder. The chased and stippled zigzag pattern and step-fret motifs on his clothing are found on actual textiles surviving from the time the vessel was made.

The man also wears a cap and earrings (one is now missing). Elaborate vessels such as this, which often have a short section cut out at the rim for pouring, were probably used in royal or ceremonial drinking rituals before being placed in the burial of an important person.

Music was an essential part of political and ritual activity in many ancient American cultures. It was also performed during daily activities such as herding and working in the fields, and for entertainment. Many depictions of musicians in various media survive, and finds of actual musical instruments—drums, horns, whistles, rattles, and panpipes—are frequent in burials.

Metalworking reached its peak with the Chimú. Displays the naturalism that characterized similar works in ceramic created by earlier cultures. It is made of many separately shaped pieces of sheet silver joined by soldering.

Burial MaskGold and Silver AlloyCopper Eyes and EarsThe Chimú believed in an afterlife closely linked to their earthly world.

The dead were prepared for their journey into the next life with elaborate tombs and copious amounts of goods buried alongside the departed.

The carefully wrapped mummies were adorned with elaborate ornamentation, of which this mask was a part. It was probably sewn into the fabric wrappings of the mummy's head.

The mask and other decorations played an important role in the intricate conveyance of the dead from this world into the next, as symbols of wealth and status and because they were believed to protect and beautify the dead.

Burial Mask

This mask once adorned the mummy of a wealthy and prominent leader.

This work is exceptional for its completeness, being comprised of 35 separate pieces, its rare large size, and its elaborate execution and design.

May have been painted and decorated with semiprecious stones, shells, and colorful feathers. 

Gold Crown

Gold Tumi Representing

NaymlapNaymlap, the heroic founder-colonizer of the Lambayque valley on the north coast of Peru, is thought to be the legendary figure represented on the top of this striking gold tumi (ceremonial knife).

The knife would have been carried by dynastic rulers during state ceremonies to represent, in a more precious form, the copper knives used for animal sacrifices

Here Naymlap stands with his arms to his abdomen and his feet splayed outward. His headdress has an elaborate open filigree design and is festooned with various small gold ornaments.

Turquoise—for the peoples of ancient Peru, a precious gem related to the worship of water and sky—is inlaid around the headdress and in the ear ornaments.

Ceremonial Knife (tumi)Copper

The Moche people of northern Peru were among the first to use copper

Clearly a ritual object, indicated by the delicate, projecting details and attractive silhouette, the knife has a semicircular blade.

The flat undulating shaft is embellished with circles in relief; stylized birds project from its sides.

At the top is a human head wearing a headdress with mushroom shapes.

The detailed facial features—wide staring eyes and open mouth framed by age wrinkles—give the face a startled look.

The holes in the earlobes once held ornaments.

Tumi

Mirror FrameWood

Carved from a single piece of fine-grained wood, the square frame shows a profile human figure standing on a balsa raft.

The raft is zoomorphic with fanged profile animal heads—possibly mythological—at its prow and stern.

The figure, with plumed headdress and a belt/loincloth ending in animal heads, holds a tumi in his right hand and a war club in his left.

The boat scene is a frequent theme in Chimú art; it appears on textiles, ceramics, metalwork, and architectural reliefs.

It reflects the importance of the sea and maritime activity to the Chimú.

The frame was probably once covered with thin sheet gold or silver attached with tiny silver nails, many of which remain.

Chan ChanChan Chan was the Chimu imperial capital city.

Covers 8 square miles in a series of nodes and filled spaces, but has no true center.

The city was located very near the sea and so was automatically dependent on canals for its fresh water needs.

Estimated 300,000 residents lived in commoner housing/ artistic workshop neighborhoods mostly outside a central core of elite residences and ten grand royal compounds.

Built entirely out of adobe brick!

Chan Chan served as a city, an artistic production center, warehouses and royal palaces, administrative centers and mausoleums.

Ciudadela (Citadel) High-walled centers that contained plazas, ceremony centers, audencias, mausoleums and warehouses that contained copious amounts of art.

All are heavily looted (it was these that the Spanish ‘mined’). Around the burial platform are small, restricted storage spaces, presumably to hold the offerings that were amassed before and at the ruler’s death.

Storage rooms contained goods, food and art objects

Audencias: U shaped rooms that were most likely used for administrator’s office.

Royal Compounds at

Chan Chan Royal compounds were also works of art themselves, the courtyards and walls were covered with adobe reliefs in repeated geometric and animal motifs.

walls and diagonal patterns are deeply reminiscent of textiles; in a sense the friezes may be permanent wall-hangings for the highest-status people.

*note: the wooden Chimú guardians

Audencias

U-Shaped rooms that were most likely used as administrative centers.

These rooms have access to the storage rooms.

Maze-like hallways from the audencias to the storage rooms

Chan Chan Chan Chan was a city of state-supported artists, several thousand creating the fabulous objects for the burial platforms and for royal exchange.

Imported from all over the kingdom, the last generation of artists were deported to Cuzco by the Incas so quickly that they left pots on the fire.

The layout of Chan Chan is labyrinth-like to emphasis how important it was to exclude most people and run those allowed to enter through a gauntlet of administrators.

The compounds point to an extreme, almost paranoid, royal hoarding of wealth, bearing out the records which claim that stealing was a capital offense to the Chimú. .