%0 Book Section
%T Spiders and spider decapitators in Moche iconography: identification from the contexts of Sipan, antecedents and symbolism
%A Alva Meneses, Nestor Ignacio
%B art and archaeology of the moche : an ancient andean society of the peruvian north coast
%D 2008
%I University of Texas Press
%C Austin
%@ 9780292718678
%G English
%F se55-017
%O Nestor Ignacio Alva Meneses
%O author not found in LOC search 8/28/12; reviewed MAS 05/02/14
%O Includes bibliographical references (p. 261)
%X The tombs excavated at Sipán in the Lambayeque Valley contained representations of spiders and anthropomorphized spider beings. In this document the iconography of spider representations from Cupisnique through Moche times in the northern and southern Moche regions is traced. It is argued that the spider represented is a north coast orb-weaving spider that has a pattern on its abdomen resembling a human face. The spider was used as a metaphor for rain, ritual sacrifice, duality, and the cycle of life and death, perhaps even symbolizing a center or axis mundi uniting the two realms.
%K Moche (Peru)
%K Antiquities
%K Moche
%K Mochica
%K Fauna
%K Visual arts
%K Burial practices and funerals
%K Cosmology
%K Ethnozoology
%U https://ehrafarchaeology.yale.edu/document?id=se55-017
%P 247-261
%[ 2022-08-10