Iconos y Narraciones: La Reconstruccion de Una Secuencia de Imagenes Moche (Fuentes e Investigaciones Para la Historia del Peru) (Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

Jurgen Golte (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: Spanish

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: IEP (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos); 1st edition (1994)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 8489303347
• ISBN-13: 978-8489303348
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,134,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars God "F" and the Iguana, August 30, 2010

By 

Joseph H. Woodside (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Iconos y Narraciones: La Reconstruccion de Una Secuencia de Imagenes Moche (Fuentes e Investigaciones Para la Historia del Peru) (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

This is a persuasive approach to deciphering the enigmatic Moche fine line paintings that appear on funerary ceramics. The thesis is that all the paintings represent episodes in one complicated epic narrative. Jurgen Golte offers sage tips for how to read the images by apprehending the sequence of action that they embody. In turn, he fits them into a broader narrative framework. Inspired by linguistic and iconographic analysis, he leaves to one side many archaeological preoccupations such as provenance and relative chronology. For him, the protagonist is a culture hero whose character develops and changes during epic battles between the gods, creatures, and humans. Agreeing with other commentators, Golte identifies the characters by headdress, details of outfit, and anthropomorphic companions, but he observes that they sometimes disguise themselves as each other as part of the story. The surprise is that his culture hero is a composite of several characters distinguished by other experts. "Wrinkle face," the god with snakes for a sash belt who wears the predator headband ornament and whose sidekick is the Iguana are really the same personage. Golte applies his scheme for reading the icons to wonderful effect to interpret a "florero," or horn bell shaped vase, that depicts five tableaux involving fights with sea monsters that both Steve Bourget in "Moche Propuestas y Perspectivas" (pp. 425 - 447) and Luis Castillo previously analyzed. Golte frequently refers to "Art and Iconography" by Christopher Donnan Moche Art and Iconography (UCLA Latin American Studies) which you should have available to fully appreciate his exposition in general and to enjoy the beauty of his interpretation of the culture hero washing his hair in the house of the sea birds.