Gold and the Incas

One particularly hot day last week we took a break from domestic duties and went on an outing.

We went to our National Gallery, which has another block buster exhibition 'Gold and the Incas Lost Worlds of Peru'.

His high and skinniness irritated me all the way there by reminding me that he has been to Peru, seen Machu Pichu, walked the Inca Trail (also known as the Inca Trial) and generally knew all about it.

How wrong he was.  The exhibition was an education and a delight for us both.

Its title was a bit of a misnomer.  The Inca Empire only lasted a hundred years (but goodness what they achieved in that time).  The Inca State of at least 12 million people fell very rapidly, due to superior European military technology, civil war and new diseases, especially smallpox.  It has been estimated that perhaps 90 per cent of the native population (more than 10 million people) were killed or died of disease and famine after the conquest.

Most of the exhibition was devoted to other, earlier cultures.  Cultures about which neither of us knew anything much at all.

For more than 2500 years before the Spanish conquered Peru, great cultures flourished, were conquered by others or absorbed into them.  Almost every artifact which survives was buried with its owners.

Gold there was in plenty.  Masks, crowns, earrings (and they make the plugs of today look positively tame), and knives.  Silver and copper work was there too.  And platinum which surprised me.

However it was the ceramics and the textiles which blew me(us) away.   Exquisite work, beautifully preserved.  I lusted after rather a lot of it.  Sadly, there are no post cards of the textiles.  Which is very sad.  The colours and the designs were incredible.  There were some shawls? woven by the Chimu people (who were conquered by 1470) which were very, very beautiful.  Open work, with fishes and big cats woven in.  How they did it I have no idea - but I was not surprised to read that the textile makers were highly regarded.  Other cultures also produced textiles, mantles, headdresses, and tunics made from alpaca and llama wool.

The Moche Culture (100-800AD) had a ribald streak.  Rather a lot of sexually explicit ceramics have been found.  And these mice on the vessel made me smile.  Wine vessel?  Water?  Oil?  I don't know, but the fact that they were buried with their owners says that they were valued.

This owl bead is also from the Moche culture - and is made from gold and turquoise.  A lovely thing isn't it?

The llama vessel is another ceramic.  This time from the Huari Culture (600-1000AD).  It was quite large too (67.0 cm x 54 cm)  And in astonishingly good condition.

Another ceramic.  This time from the Chimu Culture (1100-1470AD).  And apparently hairless dogs in Mexico are still known as Inca (or perhaps it was Peruvian) dogs.

There were more than 200 works of art in the exhibition and we spent several hours wandering from piece to piece.  In awe.

Sadly, photos are forbidden, so the images in this post are from post cards I purchased.  The first image of the post is a fridge magnet to add to our collection.
I am happy to post the cards to anyone who says they would like one.  There are only four though so it is definitely first in, best dressed.  Leave a comment if you would like one - specifying which you would like (or loathe).  And I would be happy to post them in an envelope so you can send them on - or not, as you choose.

I can see that, for a change, I am going to have to do some reading and educate myself a bit more about these cultures.