Iconic abstraction with hummingbirds in moche iconographic art

Abstract

Moche iconography, expressed through multiple styles, was rendered with particular dedication in ceramic art. Within it, one can find scenes of every mythological and liturgical nature. The vast ceramic corpus offers essential information for the arduous task of reconstructing what we know about the worldview of that society and, by extension, the religiosity and values of the Andean world. In both sculptural ceramics and painted representations, different levels of abstraction can also be distinguished. Moche artists, like those of other cultural areas, shaped their thought into symbols and expressions that could be represented metaphorically. This complicates the work of researchers but may likewise serve to motivate them. Among the many pictograms employed by the Moche, hummingbirds frequently appear, especially in scenes of combat and racing, where activity is intense. This raises the question of whether these birds held meaning in themselves or merely reinforced visually the action depicted in the scenes. The purpose of this article is to determine whether hummingbirds functioned as icons with their own inherent meaning, whether their role was limited to amplifying the actions portrayed in the iconography, or whether they constituted mythical allegories of the landscape. To this end, numerous examples of Moche ceramics have been examined, with particular attention to those featuring hummingbirds and raptors, as these too are present in a significant number of scenes where action is clearly expressed. In this way, the clarity of the meaning that hummingbirds held for the Moche is enhanced, for based on specific ceramic examples, it has been confirmed that their pictographic use was iconic and therefore carried its own meaning within each scene.