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The
Classical Era
A
diverse period – and one marked by intense development in almost every
field – is the Classical
Era (200–1100 AD), which saw the emergence of numerous distinct
cultures, both on the coast
and in the sierra.
The best documented, though not necessarily the most powerful, are the Moche
and Nasca
cultures (both probably descendants of the coastal Paracas culture) and
the Tiahuanuco,
all forebears of the better-known Incas. In recent years, though,
archaeological discoveries in the Lambayeque
Valley on the north coast have revealed important ceremonial centres
– particularly the Sicán
culture's massive sacred complex of truncated pyramids at Batan
Grande.
The
Moche culture has left the
fullest evidence of its social and domestic life, all aspects of which,
including its work and religion, are vividly represented in highly
realistic pottery. The first real
urban culture in Peru, its
members maintained a firm hierarchy,
an elite group combining both secular
and sacred power. Ordinary
people cultivated land around clusters of dwelling sites, dominated by
sacred pyramids – man-made huacas
dedicated to the gods. The key to the elite's position was probably
their organisation of large irrigation projects, essential to the survival of these
relatively large population centres in the arid desert of the north
coast.
More or less contemporaneous with the Moche, the Nazca
culture bloomed for several hundred years on the south coast. The
Nazca are thought to be responsible for the astonishing lines
and drawings etched into the
Pampa de San José, though little is known for certain about their
society or general way of life.
Named
after its sacred centre on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the Tiahuanuco
culture developed at much the same time as the Moche – with which,
initially at least, it peacefully coexisted. Tiahuanuco textiles and
pottery spread along the desert, modifying both Mochica and Nazca styles
and bending them into more sophisticated shapes and abstract patterns.
The main emphasis in Tiahuanuco pottery and stonework was on symbolic
elements featuring condors, pumas and snakes – more than likely the
culture's main gods, representing their respective spheres of the sky,
earth and underworld. In this there seem obvious echoes of the deified
natural phenomena of the earlier Chavín cult.
An
increasing prevalence of intertribal warfare characterised the ultimate centuries of this
era, culminating in the erection of defensive forts, a multiplication of
ceremonial sites (including over 60 large pyramids in the Lima area),
and, eventually, the uprooting of Huari-Tiahuanuco influence on the
coast by the emergence of three youthful mini-empires – the Chimu, the Cuismancu and
the Chincha. In the mountains
its influence mysteriously disappeared to pave the way for the separate
growth of relatively large tribal units such as the Colla
(around Lake Titicaca), the Inca
(around Cuzco) and the Chanca
(near Ayacucho).
Partly for defensive reasons, this period of isolated development
sparked off a city-building urge, which became almost compulsive by the
Imperial Era in the twelfth century. The most spectacular urban complex
was Chan Chan (near modern
Trujillo), built by the Chimu
on the side of the river opposite to earlier Mochica temples but
indicating a much greater sophistication in social control, the internal
structure of the culture's clan-based society reflected in the complex's
intricate layout. By now, with a working knowledge of bronze
manufacture, the Chimu spread their domain from Chan Chan to Tumbes in
the north and Paramonga in the south – dominating nearly half the
Peruvian coastline.
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