[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
asked.
It does. Drives me crazy. But you have to understand looting a little, don t
you? You ve seen how poor this area is. If you re lucky, you can make a lot
more money at looting than you can fishing or farming, that s for sure. It s
easy for us, coming from nice rich nations, to tell people they should donate
whatever they find to a museum. The people I really blame are the buyers,
especially the dealers. They re the ones who encourage this kind of thing, the
ones who make the big money on the finds too, I might add. Scum, in my
opinion. At least some of them, Laforet first among them. But don t get me
going on this subject, he said, looking as if he was in serious danger of
diving into a depression again.
Page 115
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
You were telling me about Arturo, I prodded.
Right, he said. Arturo first came to me last season with some artifacts
he d found. I d seen him hanging around watching, and eventually he showed up
at the hacienda and asked me to assess some stuff for him, give him some idea
of what it was worth.
He had a couple of really nice ceramic pieces: Moche, a stirrup-spout vessel
in the shape of a sea lion, complete with shell eyes, and another beaker with
fine-line drawings. Most certainly genuine. They were looted, of course. There
was no other way he could have got them. But he offered to tell me where he d
found them in exchange for my assessment of them. So I made a deal to get to
study the fine-line vase for a day or two, before giving him my assessment.
I said nothing. I know what you re thinking, he went on. But looting goes
on all the time, and I m powerless to stop it. I figure this way at least I
get a chance to study the stuff before it disappears into the black market.
I thought that one over for a minute. There were pros and cons to this
argument, and the ethics seemed a little murky to me, but what did I know?
After all, I was misrepresenting myself to these people, and had all along. I
was also the proud possessor of a genuine Moche artifact that I had not yet
got around to donating to a museum.
Anyway, Arturo s back again this season, and brought me another couple of
pieces to look at. This time he s got a real find: a little copper figure of a
warrior, judging from the attire, and a really beautiful ceramic in the shape
of a duck.
Last night Arturo came to tell me that one of the local farmers, guy by the
name of Rolando Guerra, is building a wall around a piece of property on the
edge of thealgarrobal, the carob tree forest. He s told the locals that he s
just protecting his land frominvasores, but Arturo tells me he s almost
certain the fellow has found something, and that he s building a wall around
it so that no one will see him looting it. The fact that the Guerra family are
knownhuaqueros, have been forever, would be proof enough, but add to that the
fact that Arturo s ceramic and warrior come from that same area, and that
pretty well clinches it. Thecampesino may indeed have found the big one.
And the big one is?
Page 116
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
A tomb. An undisturbed tomb of an upper-class person, someone important.
That s the most exciting find of all in our field, and down here, it could be
really spectacular. For years people studied the scenes on Moche pottery, not
realizing that the scenes depicted real occurrences or rituals. For example, a
lot of Moche pottery shows a scene in which captives are brought before a god,
or a warrior king or priest of some kind, who often sits on a litter. In front
of him there is another warrior who is half man, half bird. Behind him there
is a woman, a priestess, holding a cup. Behind her there is often another
figure with an animal face, usually feline.
What s interesting is that no matter how often this scene is depicted and no
matter the artist, the figures in it are similar. It s been compared to the
Crucifixion or the Nativity in our culture, something that s been depicted by
many people over the centuries, but always with common elements that we all
recognize. In the same way, the scene I ve described is obviously a ritual of
some importance to the Moche, and although they had no written language, and
we therefore have to surmise what s happening, it s usually referred to as the
Sacrifice theme. It s a little gory. Captives have their throats slit, and it
is probably their blood in the cup.
For a second or two an unbidden image of Edmund Edwards, blood streaming all
over his desk, and Lizard, Ramon Cervantes, garroted, leapt into my mind, but
I resolutely stuffed the images back down into my subconscious and
concentrated on what Steve was saying.
The first warrior, for example, always wears a cone-shaped headdress with a
crescent on it and rays coming out of his headdress and shoulders, a
crescent-shaped nose ornament, and large round ear ornaments. He almost always
has a dog at his feet.
The priestess always wears a headdress with two large plumes, and her hair
is in long plaits that end with serpent heads. The fourth warrior wears a
headdress with long flares that have serrated edges. You get the idea.
The extraordinary thing is that these people have been found, he enthused.
Walter Alva came across the tomb of the warrior priest and the bird priest at
a place called Sipan. Christopher Donnan and Luis Jaime Castillo found the
priestess at San Jose de Moro. They d been buried in exactly the same regalia
as that depicted on the ceramics!
I m not sure I understand this, I said. Do I understand you to say that
the people depicted on the pots were real people? And if so, you re telling me
they ve been found. So why keep looking?
Good question. For certain the rituals on the ceramics were carried out in
real life, and yes, real people held the positions. But the rituals were
Page 117
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
probably repeated over a very long period of time. Think of them as the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
asked.
It does. Drives me crazy. But you have to understand looting a little, don t
you? You ve seen how poor this area is. If you re lucky, you can make a lot
more money at looting than you can fishing or farming, that s for sure. It s
easy for us, coming from nice rich nations, to tell people they should donate
whatever they find to a museum. The people I really blame are the buyers,
especially the dealers. They re the ones who encourage this kind of thing, the
ones who make the big money on the finds too, I might add. Scum, in my
opinion. At least some of them, Laforet first among them. But don t get me
going on this subject, he said, looking as if he was in serious danger of
diving into a depression again.
Page 115
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
You were telling me about Arturo, I prodded.
Right, he said. Arturo first came to me last season with some artifacts
he d found. I d seen him hanging around watching, and eventually he showed up
at the hacienda and asked me to assess some stuff for him, give him some idea
of what it was worth.
He had a couple of really nice ceramic pieces: Moche, a stirrup-spout vessel
in the shape of a sea lion, complete with shell eyes, and another beaker with
fine-line drawings. Most certainly genuine. They were looted, of course. There
was no other way he could have got them. But he offered to tell me where he d
found them in exchange for my assessment of them. So I made a deal to get to
study the fine-line vase for a day or two, before giving him my assessment.
I said nothing. I know what you re thinking, he went on. But looting goes
on all the time, and I m powerless to stop it. I figure this way at least I
get a chance to study the stuff before it disappears into the black market.
I thought that one over for a minute. There were pros and cons to this
argument, and the ethics seemed a little murky to me, but what did I know?
After all, I was misrepresenting myself to these people, and had all along. I
was also the proud possessor of a genuine Moche artifact that I had not yet
got around to donating to a museum.
Anyway, Arturo s back again this season, and brought me another couple of
pieces to look at. This time he s got a real find: a little copper figure of a
warrior, judging from the attire, and a really beautiful ceramic in the shape
of a duck.
Last night Arturo came to tell me that one of the local farmers, guy by the
name of Rolando Guerra, is building a wall around a piece of property on the
edge of thealgarrobal, the carob tree forest. He s told the locals that he s
just protecting his land frominvasores, but Arturo tells me he s almost
certain the fellow has found something, and that he s building a wall around
it so that no one will see him looting it. The fact that the Guerra family are
knownhuaqueros, have been forever, would be proof enough, but add to that the
fact that Arturo s ceramic and warrior come from that same area, and that
pretty well clinches it. Thecampesino may indeed have found the big one.
And the big one is?
Page 116
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
A tomb. An undisturbed tomb of an upper-class person, someone important.
That s the most exciting find of all in our field, and down here, it could be
really spectacular. For years people studied the scenes on Moche pottery, not
realizing that the scenes depicted real occurrences or rituals. For example, a
lot of Moche pottery shows a scene in which captives are brought before a god,
or a warrior king or priest of some kind, who often sits on a litter. In front
of him there is another warrior who is half man, half bird. Behind him there
is a woman, a priestess, holding a cup. Behind her there is often another
figure with an animal face, usually feline.
What s interesting is that no matter how often this scene is depicted and no
matter the artist, the figures in it are similar. It s been compared to the
Crucifixion or the Nativity in our culture, something that s been depicted by
many people over the centuries, but always with common elements that we all
recognize. In the same way, the scene I ve described is obviously a ritual of
some importance to the Moche, and although they had no written language, and
we therefore have to surmise what s happening, it s usually referred to as the
Sacrifice theme. It s a little gory. Captives have their throats slit, and it
is probably their blood in the cup.
For a second or two an unbidden image of Edmund Edwards, blood streaming all
over his desk, and Lizard, Ramon Cervantes, garroted, leapt into my mind, but
I resolutely stuffed the images back down into my subconscious and
concentrated on what Steve was saying.
The first warrior, for example, always wears a cone-shaped headdress with a
crescent on it and rays coming out of his headdress and shoulders, a
crescent-shaped nose ornament, and large round ear ornaments. He almost always
has a dog at his feet.
The priestess always wears a headdress with two large plumes, and her hair
is in long plaits that end with serpent heads. The fourth warrior wears a
headdress with long flares that have serrated edges. You get the idea.
The extraordinary thing is that these people have been found, he enthused.
Walter Alva came across the tomb of the warrior priest and the bird priest at
a place called Sipan. Christopher Donnan and Luis Jaime Castillo found the
priestess at San Jose de Moro. They d been buried in exactly the same regalia
as that depicted on the ceramics!
I m not sure I understand this, I said. Do I understand you to say that
the people depicted on the pots were real people? And if so, you re telling me
they ve been found. So why keep looking?
Good question. For certain the rituals on the ceramics were carried out in
real life, and yes, real people held the positions. But the rituals were
Page 117
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
probably repeated over a very long period of time. Think of them as the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]