Getting High in Peru: A Visit to El Brujo, the Wizard

Getting High in Peru: A Visit to El Brujo, the Wizard

On Monday, Oct 7, we journeyed from Trujillo north to the Moche El Brujo (The Wizard) Archaeological Complex with a pre-history that goes back to Neolithic times (7000 years ago). However, the pre-Inca history at El Brujo focuses on the Moche (AD 200- 800), followed by the Lambayeque (AD 900-1200), and then the Chimu (AD 1200-1470). El Brujo’s name sticks since this area continues to be associated with Shamans. We were unable to photograph in the museum, so I shot the site, its friezes, and signs. The July 2004 issue of the National Geographic introduced me to this complex in an article entitled, “Peruvian Temple of Doom,” but again, I did not know back then that I would be able to come here.  

The Huaca, the pyramid-shaped temple, tourists visit at this complex is the Huaca Cao Viejo (or Dama de Cao/Lady of the Cao), due to the discovery featured in the June 2006 issue of the National Geographic. The article was entitled the “Mystery of the Tattooed Mummy,” detailing the discovery of a desiccated Moche entombed in a mudbrick (adobe) burial chamber. Finding this Moche entombed was unusual in itself at this mudbrick Huaca (Temple) built in sight of the Pacific, but the body was entombed during the 4^th or 5^th c. AD, and the body was that of a tattooed woman, who bore at least one child and died in her late 20s. The Moche society was not one ruled by women, yet this lady was entombed in the temple’s peak in full regalia. If the friezes of this temple speak correctly to us, this Moche site was another site where human sacrifice was performed. Did she rule this area or region? The answer is unknown since there are no written records; however, due to the rich nature of the finds in her tomb which included gold crowns, and the fact that she was buried in the peak of the temple, we may surmise that she was a ruler of the Moche. The other skeletal remains found here were of men and without the riches. The burial bundle of the woman “ruler” included a sacrificed girl with a cord around her neck as featured in numerous murals where the person to be sacrificed is led with a cord around the neck. 

 Here is the sign introducing you to the site

 Students waiting to get in. The site is visible above the museum.

 Another group waiting to enter

This is the Huaca Cao Viejo (or Dama de Cao/Lady of the Cao)

Her tomb is right of center and not open for visitors

The Huaca, the pyramid-shaped temple, tourists visit at this complex is the Huaca Cao Viejo (or Dama de Cao/Lady of the Cao), due to the discovery featured in the June 2006 issue of the National Geographic. The article was entitled the “Mystery of the Tattooed Mummy,” detailing the discovery of a desiccated Moche entombed in a mudbrick (adobe) burial chamber. Finding this Moche entombed was unusual in itself at this mudbrick Huaca (Temple) built in sight of the Pacific, but the body was entombed during the 4^th or 5^th c. AD, and the body was that of a tattooed woman, who bore at least one child and died in her late 20s. The Moche society was not one ruled by women, yet this lady was entombed in the temple’s peak in full regalia. If the friezes of this temple speak correctly to us, this Moche site was another site where human sacrifice was performed. Did she rule this area or region? The answer is unknown since there are no written records; however, due to the rich nature of the finds in her tomb which included gold crowns, and the fact that she was buried in the peak of the temple, we may surmise that she was a ruler of the Moche. The other skeletal remains found here were of men and without the riches. The burial bundle of the woman “ruler” included a sacrificed girl with a cord around her neck as featured in numerous murals where the person to be sacrificed is led with a cord around the neck. 

 Standing in the Plaza with the friezes on the plaza wall

 Closeups of the naked prisoners led by a rope around their necks

Above and Below

 The tomb of the tattooed lady is upper by the guard

 Broken frieze of the god bearing a knife in one hand and a decapitated head in the other.

 2nd Row of broken friezes

 

 On site sign showing the Plaza with friezes.

The Lady of Cao's tomb upper right in red outlined square

 

On-site explanation signs

 In the burial bundle the two war clubs were by her sides.

She is wearing/bearing what was recovered with her.

This is one of her four crowns

 This is another "Lady" currently in the Bruning Museum from another posting.

She too is tattooed (lower right arm) and had a gold bowl placing over her face.

This Lady too had 2 war clubs and lots of jewelry around her neck

 

The Lady had been wrapped in cotton cloth with the top layer having an embroidered face sown on. A gilded wooden statuette bearing a war club was nearby, a symbolic guardian perhaps. As the cotton layers were continued to be unwrapped, copper-gold alloy sheets were revealed as were two ceremonial war clubs which flanked the body, leading the team to surmise that the body was that of a man.

            Once the cotton was removed, the tattooed arms were revealed along with a gold bowl covering the face. The tattoos include snakes and spiders, which some experts suggest may be linked to agricultural ceremonies among the Moche. Beaded necklaces were around the neck as were nose rings, one with a condor pecking at a head, and another with a man carrying a war club. An exam of the corpse revealed that the body was that of a woman with braided hair, and within the bundle were four crowns. 

 Temple de la Luna example of the sacrifice process

 Temple de la Luna examples again of their friezes--the top row 

has the god with the knife in one hand and head in the other.

Close up here below

The site’s signage shows the pyramid-shaped, five-storied mudbrick temple, the tomb, the Lady of the Cao in full regalia in lieu of pictures from the museum. In the temple’s plaza is a model, which also allows you to orient yourself to the site. We were unable to visit where the Lady was entombed; it was closed off. The photos show parts of the football (soccer) sized plaza with the friezes. What you see are groups of prisoners, ropes around their neck, being led, evidently to their sacrificial deaths. Perhaps they heard the ocean’s surf before their throats were slit. Moche friezes elsewhere show a priest slitting the throat of the victim as a priestess (or a female attendant) catches some of the blood in a gold goblet. And again, the friezes also show figures bearing a five-pointed crown, which I first viewed as petroglyphs at Toro Muerto. The archaeologist here views this figure as representing the planet Venus. A particular highlight for me in the museum was viewing artifacts of Lapis Lazuli. I encountered Lapis on numerous occasions in my 40 years of archaeology in the Middle East knowing this stone is rare with only one source for it—Afghanistan. If you have seen some of Tutankhamun’s artifacts, for example, he prized Lapis in death and perhaps in life as well. After questioning several experts here in Peru, I found out that Lapis was mined in the Andes of Chile. In the museum, you are able to view a mirror image of the Lady, whose body actually is well below ground.

 

Bruning Museum: This is the Lapis Lazuli necklace worn by the other Lady. 

(See the Bruning Museum Posting for other shots.)

 This is the on-site model showing the main plaza
and the Tomb of the Lady, Upper Right.

Model view, Tomb of the Lady

 Tomb of the Lady and the Plaza left

 

The Model and Plaza with the friezes in back

 

            Alas, this site too shows the ravages of El Ninos of the past including the more recent past. If you gaze around from the top of the Huaca, you’ll see numerous looter holes. The Spanish conquistadors were not the last ones to dig for Inca and pre-Inca artifacts. But the archaeologists who are conducting a systematic study of the mudbrick remnants have also recovered artifacts of the Lambayeque peoples who followed the Moche. Ojala, they will continue to be successful in recovering Peru’s proud past.  

Another nearby Huaca

 

Paz, Neal Bierling