Dating back to the 7th century, this throne room is one of two pillared halls excavated this year at Panamarca.
Archaeologists in Peru have discovered the first known painted throne room belonging to a very powerful Moche woman. Dating back to the 7th century, this throne room is one of two pillared halls excavated this year at Panamarca, a site that served as a key political and religious center located 350 km north of Lima. The Moche civilization flourished along the northern Peruvian coast from around 350 to 850 AD.
“We call the painted throne room the ‘Hall of the Moche Imaginary’ because of the extraordinary abundance of subject matter arrayed on every painted surface-walls, pillar faces and the earthen throne itself, which was built between two pillars,” says Lisa Trever, an associate professor in pre-Columbian art history and archeology at Columbia University, and a member of the team studying the site.
During the examination of the throne, the archaeologists noted signs of wear, such as erosion on the back support, along with the greenstone beads, fine threads and human hair which suggests it had been used. The hall’s painted scenes depict a Moche hero, likely to be named “Ai Apaec,” battling monsters that are part human and part animal, alongside images of spinning and weaving. Additionally, the artwork also features several images of powerful women underscoring their significance.
One of the painted scenes depicted a woman enthroned conversing with a bird-man, another shows her standing and holding a goblet. In a different scene, a procession of men carries her crown and textiles.
“Female leaders were not rare in ancient Moche society or in the northern Peruvian dynasties that followed. There is evidence in abundance of female authorities, most of it from funerary contexts, for centuries of this history,” says Trever.
The second excavated hall, referred to as the “Hall of the Braided Serpents,” is situated at the corner of Panamarca’s great plaza. From this vantage point, privileged people could overlook the events happening in another plaza below.
“Unlike the throne room, this hall was meant to be a place from which to see larger gatherings, and also to be seen,” Trever says. “The scale of the images on the pillars including the intertwined snakes that gave this hall its name and other paintings of monsters and warriors on the walls of that space would have been legible from a greater distance.” Both halls excavated this year are unprecedented in Moche archaeology, and there is still a lot left to uncover at the site.
