Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture [Hardcover]

Izumi Shimada (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1994

Pampa Grande, the largest and most powerful city of the Mochica (Moche) culture on the north coast of Peru, was built, inhabited, and abandoned during the period A.D. 550-700. It is extremely important archaeologically as one of the few pre-Hispanic cities in South America for which there are enough reliable data to reconstruct a model of pre-Hispanic urbanism. This book presents a "biography" of Pampa Grande that offers a reconstruction not only of the site itself but also of the sociocultural and economic environment in which it was built and abandoned. Izumi Shimada argues that Pampa Grande was established rapidly and without outside influence at a strategic position at the neck of the Lambayeque Valley that gave it control over intervalley canals and their agricultural potential and allowed it to gain political dominance over local populations. Study of the site itself leads him to posit a large resident population made up of transplanted Mochica and local non-Mochica groups with a social hierarchy of at least three tiers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In Shimada's elegantly illustrated, well argued and documented book, he undertakes the task of exploring the complex causes for the transition registered between Moche-IV and Moche-V, and for the rise and fall of [the] last great Mochica civic experiment, Pampa Grande. But far more is offered, for Shimada embarked on a brilliant critical re-evaluation of what is known and still enigmatic about the long-lived Mochica cultural tradition in the Peruvian North Coast.... .Using a multidisciplinary approach Shimada weaves a richly patterned tapestry of Mochica prehistory. It is required reading for archaeologists interested in Latin America. (Antiquity )

Review

There is no work whatever at this time that presents the urban configuration and composition of a Moche city, so [Shimada's] considerable data on this topic will be very valuable for scholars of urbanism of the Moche, of the North Coastal region and, for comparative purposes, of Andean culture in general. (Garth Bawden, director, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and professor of anthropology, University of New Mexico )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1 edition (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292776748
• ISBN-13: 978-0292776746
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,970,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Material Basis of a Moche Culture, March 22, 2010

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture (Paperback)

Pampa Grande was the largest and most advanced city of the fifth and final phase of Moche culture. It was rapidly built from scratch with construction technology imported from the south in conditions of rapid cultural and social change amid cataclysmic, deteriorating, environmental conditions. This book is a portrait of that New Town in its historical and regional context with a sketch of its violent downfall marking the enigmatic apocalypse of Moche culture.

Shimada emphasizes the material underpinnings that formed the economic basis of Moche culture with much detailed physical evidence. Many substantial details of daily life emerge in the book, not least of which is that Pampa Grande kept llamas in great numbers to provide transport services, as well as for food, sacrifice, and clothing. Shimada compares Moche sites of workshops or primitive factories that manufactured domestic ceramics or that brewed alcoholic maize beer for distribution, with modern equivalents operated by local people. Various maps provide detailed diagrams that contextualize towns, temples, mines, and gigantic irrigation works. Urban maps contrast the central areas of other cities, including Galindo, with selected districts of Pampa Grande. Floor plans of major temples and smaller private buildings give a delicious sense of being able to step along the narrow passageways into the physical past of this terminal Moche city.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, February 11, 2010

By 

Cecilia (Orono, Maine, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture (Hardcover)

El libro que compré estuvo en muy buenas condiciones, nuevo, sin marcas, good shipping time, great conditions of the item, good!